Soldier
by FearandLoathingXIX
Summary: In which Mulan fights, grows, and bruises far too easily: all a part of her journey to manhood. Sort of. Set during the training period of the 'Be a Man' musical number.
1. Monkey

Well this goes out to all the girls who have bugged me about writing this and encouraged me while I did it. Sylla, for the original link to Leap of Faith and the nagging to do a Mulan story of my own. La, for being precious, and always being around while I was writing, Penzie, Sai, Woodster, and all the other Genesis Awards ladles who have loved and supported me through this my most Disney of times. I love you alll, so here goes nothing.

* * *

The first day of the rest of Mulan's life did not go _quite_ as she had planned.

Sure, she knew that once the officers saw her summons and listed her 'Fa Ping' there was no turning back or going home, but she had hoped to make a slightly better impression – not starting a fight and then publicly dribbling. She'd barely even been there an hour.

At least there was no way to go any lower if she hit rock bottom on the first day, right?

Wrong.

"_This _represents discipline, and _this _represents strength."

Day two was lining up to be _even worse._

Yao, the unwitting volunteer, seemed to think that 'discipline' and 'strength' mostly represented very heavy weights, as the two combined nearly dragged him off his feet, and now he was expected to _climb _with them.

"You need both to reach the arrow," Captain Li Shang said sternly, glancing up at his arrow at the top of the climbing post in the centre of camp. His expectations weren't high – that way he had less to be disappointed in. Although he still couldn't help but feel horrified as the men lined up to attempt the challenge; _he _had completed this task when he was just fifteen years old.

Yao climbed about a metre and then and fell, nearly leaving his front teeth in the post. Ling didn't do much better, and Chien-Po very nearly got the arrow by knocking the whole post out of the ground. It was 'Ping's' turn next, and Mulan knew that it was important to do as well as the others, or else she'd start looking very un-manly for an alleged man, _and_ a son of 'theFa Zhou' at that.

The weights were even heavier than she'd imagined, and her arms burned just to lift them; at home she didn't even had to lift the sacks of grain to feed the chickens, not with the dog around. She approached the climbing pole warily, knowing that everyone, the Captain included, was watching her and probably willing her to fail after her less-than-stellar start. She wouldn't let herself be humiliated, she just _couldn't _let it happen so soon.

So she grit her teeth and took in a deep breath, then grabbed onto the pole and brought up her feet, butting her toes against the wood and stretching out to reach up for a higher hand hold. She _almost _fell, but just about managed to get a grip and hopped up with her feet again; unlike her hands her lower body was unweighted and more flexible than the men's, so although she barely gained height struggling against the weights, her legs could compensate for that a little.

However her strength was a mere fraction of anyone else's, and she barely managed another movement upwards before she began to slide downwards, losing her grip completely taking the inevitable fall hard. The so-called 'discipline' and 'strength' probably weighed about as much as she did, but at least she'd got her feet off the ground, and everyone else seemed just as terrible too: perhaps she stood a chance at fitting in yet.

"We've got a _looong _way to go," she heard Captain Li groan as she walked past him, but didn't dare to look around for fear of his noticing and paying her any more attention than she'd already got. After all, he was talking about everyone and not just her.

Shang grabbed a handful of practising staffs, and threw them towards the lined up troops. Mulan reached out to catch hers, but Yao blind-sided her and snatched it away before she even got close, then spun it around to trip her up. It appeared that he hadn't let go of the little incident from earlier on just yet.

"Touch my behind again and I'll put that staff up yours, Ping," he growled as Mulan crawled to her feet, telling herself this was the _last_ time she _ever_ took advice from that glorified lizard Mushu.

Before she could even try to make amends with Yao, Shang had the troops' attention again as he began to demonstrate their exercises. Hooking the ends of the staff onto clay pots on either side of him, he threw them up into the air and then effortlessly smashed both as they fell back down.

"Show off," Mulan heard Yao muttering under his breath again, but she barely registered it as she was staring at the Captain hard enough to make her eyes pop out of her head.

He gestured that everyone hold out their staff horizontally at arm's length, and every man obeyed – Mulan was relieved to at last be able to blend into the group with some nice regimented exercises. Nothing could _possibly _go wrong now, she thought, breathing a sigh of relief.

Until Ling dropped a bug down the back of her shirt.

She wasn't _afraid_ of beetles or insects, but that thing had sharp jaws and legs; it thrashed against her skin, scratching and tickling her at the same time. She yelped and twisted around, which only made the bug fall down to her waistband where it started biting her. Flailing wildly, she tried to shake it out of her shirt by jumping up and down, but this all only served to bring the roaming ends of her staff into contact with anything and anyone standing too close, levelling all the recruits in a circle around her.

The beetle climbed higher up her back again and Mulan bit her tongue hard to stop herself screaming as she tried to grab at it; maybe if she could smash the thing she'd be able to clean out the mess later, but right now she just wanted it to stop moving.

She barely noticed the Captain vaulting over to sort out the cause of this new trouble, and it wasn't until she threw back the hand that held onto her staff that she realized he was there at all. This was of course because she had swung clean through his guard and hit him hard in the stomach.

Shang hadn't been prepared for it, so the wind was knocked out of him and he curled over, dropping his staff and covering his abdomen with an arm, only just ducking a second sweep over his head. Mulan just managed to shake the bug out of her uniform with a full body twist, when she turned and saw the Captain standing there behind her. So much for keeping out of trouble.

She hadn't been here two days and she had nailed her commanding officer in the stomach, and he did _not _look pleased about it.

Shang snatched the staff out of Mulan's hands, her strength being no match for his as he was impressively built and she had no doubt that he could smash her head with about as much ease as he did those clay pots.

"Feeling those '_manly urges'_ again, Fa Ping?" he questioned, and Mulan simply cowered in her boots. Captain Li more or less absolutely terrified her.

Faster than her eyes could follow him he reached out and grabbed a fistful of her uniform, precariously close to her chest, so she had to quickly push herself backwards to keep his hands as far away from her as possible. However, for this he yanked her toward him and pulled her face up to his, seeming to be even more irritated that she shied away.

"_Don't_ try my patience," he warned, his grip becoming tighter as he lifted her off her feet, his square jaw set in a scowl as her toes dangled helplessly a few inches off the ground.

"S-s-sorry, Sir," she whimpered, only just remembering to lower her voice and squirming awkwardly as she tried to keep the Captain's hand away from her chest.

"A bunch of children," he muttered as he dropped Mulan and stormed off. "Did they somehow send out for daughters of China instead of sons?" Unbeknownst to him, Mulan's face coloured at this – she was praying that he hadn't noticed anything 'daughterly' about _her_.

At least she had the fortune to not be a girl with any womanly charms to start with, although her ability to make anyone important like her still seemed to be perfectly malfunctioning as usual.

"Everyone will run around the encampment until sunset," Shang commanded. "Your friend Fa Ping has demonstrated that practice with weapons is still beyond you." A horde of angry faces turned on Mulan, but there wasn't much of a chance to act upon the threats the glares promised because the Captain hurried them along.

"Anyone caught walking will have to do an extra lap after sunset!" he barked. "Move it!" Everyone started to run, and they were no more than five paces out of the Captain's direct observation before a foot ended up curiously underneath Mulan's feet, tripping her up and sending her tumbling head over heels.

She got back up and carried on running, pretending that it had never happened, when the same thing happened again, and she heard a snigger behind her back. There was no way she could beat all of these men; there was no way she could even beat _one_, so she just had to bear it. This was her fault after all.

Although she kept up at first, Mulan soon fell behind the other more fit men, and eventually it was only the short-legged Yao and overweight Chien-Po who remained at the same place as her – Ling was only a little way in front of them, but even that distance put an obnoxiously proud expression on his face.

Yao turned his anger upon Mulan. "This is all your fault you little runt!" he snarled, and took a swipe at her. She jumped out of the way and took cover behind Chien-Po, who trotted merrily on without seeming to notice Yao at all. "Come back here! I'm gonna beat you so hard your children will be born bruised!"

"Now, now, Yao," Chien-Po said serenely as Yao tried to climb _over_ him to reach Mulan. "Don't you find jogging relaxing? Doesn't it clear your mind of stresses and anger?" Yao didn't look like he agreed, but at the very least he stopped trying to chase down Mulan for the time being.

How Chien-Po actually managed to stay so calm was beyond Mulan, who was already sweating, sore, aching and felt like her legs had turned into wooden stumps. She could barely keep pace with these two, let alone anyone else, and the Captain wasn't even worth mentioning.

The sun wasn't very low in the sky, so she knew there were still a good few hours more of this torture before she could rest, so even though she fell behind and her body screamed for rest she had to push on... she _had _to keep on going... she had to...

When she opened her eyes she was lying face down in the mud with an irate dragon screaming in her face.

"Mulan! This is no time to be napping!" Mushu screeched. "If Mr. Muscles over there catches you asleep on the job it'll be laps until midnight! Get up! Get up!" When she didn't move, he slapped her on cheek with a clawed hand. "Wakey wakey!No one's seen you yet so you might just get away with it!"

She struggled to her feet, feeling dizzier than ever, but somehow managed to force herself into a jog.

"Atta girl, now off you trot," Mushu urged. "Run along and no one needs to know about you sleeping on the job."

"I wasn't asleep, I passed out!" she protested.

"Potato_e_-Pot_a_to," Musu replied, clinging to her shoulder as she ran along. "Now if anyone asks, you're so far away from the group because you've lapped and overtaken them all."

"No one is going to believe that," Mulan said wearily. "Just look at me." She did have a point, as she was covered in dirt, drenched in sweat and wheezing with every breath; she sure didn't _look_ like she was winning the race.

"A little mud and sweat'll just make you more _manly_," Mushu consoled. After a few more minutes of running he suddenly climbed down Mulan's sleeve and bounded to the ground. "Ooh! I've got an idea! Here you keep this up and I'll go make up something special for you." He raced off into the undergrowth and left Mulan alone once more.

Although not for too long, as Ling came up behind her for his first overtake – he managed to find a shortcut and was taking full advantage.

"What's the matter, Ping?" he taunted. "Don't you like laps?"

Mulan said nothing; for one because she didn't have the breath to.

"I was the best at running in my school," Ling boasted, "...because I was always running away from gymn class." He grinned, not seeming to understand his own irony, and accelerated past Mulan, but not before trying to trip her up for good measure. Thankfully she knew it was coming, and managed to jump over his leg as it came out under her feet. She slowed down deliberately and let Ling get ahead, but unfortunately he was eventually followed by the rest of the recruits, who – although they didn't try to push or trip her – did snigger and mock her as they went by, calling her a weakling and troublemaker.

Mulan didn't have enough water left in her body to cry, but she almost felt like it as she tried to shrug off their words – she couldn't fit in _anywhere_, it seemed.

She forced herself to think of her father, and about what might have happened if he'd been sent out to war; at least this way if _she_ was killed it was only a useless unweddable daughter who died, not a great man like her father. It was better this way regardless of whether she succeeded or failed.

She wouldn't give up just yet though, she'd known it would be hard, and there was no way out even if she wanted to leave. It couldn't get any worse after this, at the very least.

So at long last the sun set, and the troops were released from their circuit training. Most of them went to the mess to get something to eat, but Mulan was too exhausted and felt far too sick to stomach anything, so she crawled back to her tent and collapsed.

"Now now, you won't build up your strength if you don't eat," came the voice of Mushu from underneath her pillow, and he snaked out carrying a soup bowl full of a foul-smelling steamy soup. "Here you go. It's an ancient ancestral recipe! I made it myself," he said proudly, pushing the bowl in front of her face. "Passed down through our family for generations of soldiers! Inside this bowl are all of the nutritious vitamins and herbs you need to to grow big and strong!"

"It looks like a bowl full of garden trimmings," Mulan said unenthusiastically.

"Don't talk smack about the Fa family's treasured recipe!" Mushu scolded. "You haven't even tried it yet! One bowlful of this and you'll wake up feeling as right as rain tomorrow: Dragon's honour." He pushed the bowl at her again, and without much else to do Mulan took a tiny sip of the soup, and then pulled a face.

"It's awful!" she griped, sticking out her tongue in disgust.

"Well of course it tastes _bad_. That's how you know it works," Mushu responded, and then took a big spoonful and stuck it in Mulan's open mouth. "Here comes the the Emperor's carriage!"

"Bleh." Mulan tried not to gag and forced herself to swallow the horrible stew – she needed to eat _something_ at least. Besides, judging by the quality of the food they were serving in the mess it wasn't going to taste much better than this. Even if there were clumps of dirt in it.

"Mushu is there a pebble at the bottom of this bowl?" she asked sceptically.

"Well... yeah..." her guardian responded, "to make you... strong and... hard... like a rock." He laughed to himself awkwardly "Anyway! If you have the energy to complain you should be eating! You have to get a full night's sleep for this to work properly... now, now, don't look at me like that! You haven't even seen the results yet. Trust me when you wake up in the morning you'll feel like a million gold pieces, and it'll be all down to this secret Fa family soup. It's over a thousand years old, you know."

It sure _tasted_ like it was a thousand years old, but Mulan realized in the end that she better just do as Mushu said and eat her horrible soup and then go to sleep, which wasn't much to ask because the moment she laid back in on her bedroll she was out cold.

The next day was no easier than the one just ended. Captain Shang ordered more circuit training, and only those to finish a hundred laps before noon could move on to practising techniques. A few of the men made it, but even Ling who had been doing okay yesterday was wrecked with muscle fatigue and couldn't keep pace.

Surprisingly, Mushu's mystery potion seemed to have had some kind of an effect, because although she woke as stiff as a board and in chronic pain, once she had warmed up, her limbs did not hurt so much and she was able to almost keep pace with Yao and Chien-Po, even if she _did _have to occasionally dodge Yao swinging a punch or trying to trip her.

"Stop followin' me, ya creep!" Yao snarled.

"I can't help it, we're running laps!" she protested as she hopped over a branch he had thrown in front of her path.

"That ain't no excuse," the stocky man growled. "I can tell you're just sayin' that so's you can follow me around. What are ya some kind of fairy boy?"

"No sir!" she yelped, veering to the other side of Chien-Po and hoping he'd act as a buffer for her again.

"Come on, _Ling_," Yao taunted the new addition to their stragglers group. "Not so speedy anymore?"

"Short-legs!" Ling countered.

"Heeeey, guys!" Mulan said in her best impression of a man's voice. "Let's not fight like this."

Unfortunately she did not have the same soothing effect upon the men as Chien-Po did, and instead of beating one another Ling and Yao decided to go for her instead.

She leapt up as Yao dived for her legs and landed on top of his back, then quickly ducked down and jumped forwards as Ling came at her from higher up.

She may have landed face-first in the now-dusty running track, but at least managed to roll out of the way of Ling as he was kicked backwards after her by Yao, who was not pleased at being used as a launchpad.

"Stay still you little shrimp!" Yao roared, charging after Mulan who scrambled to her feet and dashed off. A little way ahead she spotted some bushes and a tree, and with Yao and Ling hot on her tail and her ability to outrun them severely in question, she rolled into the bushes and out of sight, hoping they would miss her.

She heard them running by, but the footsteps stopped as they obviously realized 'Ping' had disappeared, so before they could turn around and discover her Mulan jumped up and grabbed onto one of the lower branches of the tree overhead. She was much better at climbing without two heavy weights on her wrists, and managed to hide herself up the tree before Ling and Yao could pull up the bushes in search of her, fuelled on adrenaline alone.

"He's gone!" yelled Yao. "Damn that Ping!"

"I just don't get it," said Ling. "He _must _be here." Afraid that he'd look up and see her there, Mulan started to climb out on one of the branches farthest away from them.

"If the Captain sees you standing around he'll give you more laps," Chien-Po reminded the two gently. "Let Ping watch out for himself. We better press on."

Thankfully the footsteps of the men started up again and moved away from Mulan's hiding place; what she didn't bank on, though, was the branch she was clinging to being so very weak.

"Where are the men who completed the circuits?" below her sounded the unmistakable voice of Captain Li, questioning their attending consul Chi Fu. In her surprise Mulan wobbled a little, swaying the branch she was on and causing several worrying cracking sounds to come from it.

"Uh oh..." she murmured, and quickly tried to climb to safety, which only shook the branch more, and she had barely moved before the whole thing snapped off completely.

Shang barely had time to look up at the source of the noise before Mulan, a branch and a birds nest all came flying down on top of him, sending the whole lot tumbling to the ground.

"Waaaaaah!" Mulan screamed, or Ping, as the Captain so supposed. "Oof!" she sounded as she landed, bouncing off Shang's body onto the ground, making for a slightly softer landing than she had expected. However, it was at the cost of what was about to follow,which was probably more unpleasant overall.

"PING?!" Shang yelled in shocked anger, recognising the 'boy' who had fallen on him.

"Sir!" Mulan yelped, scrambling to her feet. "I have an explanation... I mean... I can explain this... well... I can't, but if I could then I would... _explain_, you know..."

"Is that how you greet a commanding officer?" he snapped, and Mulan jumped to attention and saluted him. "That is _not_ what I was referring to," he said coldly. "Jumping out of a tree? Really, Ping?"

"I fell," Mulan mumbled.

"It hardly makes a difference," he countered. "You have been ordered to do _laps_."

"Yes sir! And I am!" Mulan gushed. "Well I _was _until..."

"Until you decided to climb trees instead?" Shang interrupted. "This is an army, Ping, not a boys club. You cannot treat any part of it lightly, _my_ orders first of all." He was stern, but tried not to appear too furious now, because it was plain to see that Ping was just a boy: sixteen at most. This probably all seemed like a grand game to him still, but Shang too had been like that once, so he had a little empathy. A _little_.

"I am being serious, sir," Mulan said humbly, her eyes fixed permanently on the ground.

"Then why are you _here_ and not running circuits?" he asked coldly.

"I was hiding, sir..." she replied.

"You cannot _hide _from orders," scolded Shang.

"I can hide from _people_ though," she answered back under her breath.

"No excuses!" he snapped cruelly. "You can go and relieve the cook from cleaning up tonight for your insubordination. Until then, I don't want to see you again unless you are running around the camp boundaries." Mulan lingered still, as if she hadn't quite got the message, or like she was avoiding returning for some reason.

"Dismissed!" Shang barked, and with this Ping scampered back through the bushes to the running track.

In truth, the Captain had an ulterior motive in having the new recruits circle the camp – his father had left him word of suspected guerilla activity from the Huns in these parts, and to have the troops doing circuits gave a fair warning system for anyone approaching the camp, and from afar made it appear as if they were sending out regular and heavy patrols. Something like that at least.

Shang heard Ping's footsteps fade away, and let out a heavy breath. The child hadn't even been here a week and he had managed to hit him with a staff and now ambush him – he didn't even have hair growing on his face! Shang could hardly be fit to defend himself from a guerilla if an upstart like Ping could take him by surprise.

He assured himself that Ping was simply an exception – an unpredictable factor, who just got lucky a couple of times. He would straighten him out, there wouldn't be any repeats of this kind of behaviour.

It wasn't going to be easy, but he'd make a man out of him... _somehow.

* * *

_It begins...

Points for people pointing out the song lyrics, as most of this story is set within the musical number 'I'll make a man out of you', so I slip in a few bits now and again. This isn't exactly a buzzing fandom, so reviews aren't really my object here, but goddamit if you READ it and ESPECIALLY if you know me, I'm looking at YOU Sylla and La, leave some frakkin words down because YOU ASKED FOR IT AND NOW HERE IT IS ARE YOU HAPPY?! ARE YOU FRIGGIN HAPPY NOW?!

Ah ha. I kid I love you all.

Oh and I've not read it through on the DM so if it smushes any of my words or you hate me and all my words do point it out.


	2. Rooster

Bam! Updatedio! I think I'm going to aim for Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays to update this, which, considering it's already written will mean it'll be fully posted in about two more weeks. Hurrah! This chapter is about a k longer than the first, as it's getting into the real action and I like to have proper development in each chapter, so that when you look from the end back to the beginning you realize quite a lot of stuff has actually happened.

Anyway, thank you to all the lovely gals who have reviewed me and further love to everyone who encouraged me to write this. It's one of the best things I've ever written IMO, and has been a wonderful occupation for the past month or so. Sylla, La, Hikari, Sootysnowpetal, Spopo, and all other readers and reviewers, this is for you!

* * *

It was almost the end of the first week and Mulan had yet to graduate from 'running laps' as Captain Li had ordered, but it was tolerable because no one else had done so either – much to the Captain's fury – so they were all still pounding the earth day after day.

Thankfully, on the sixth day of training the Captain announced to the men that they would have the next day off, and allowed them to spend it as they saw fit as long as they didn't leave camp. It was good for morale, Shang told Chi Fu – who objected to the troops being given 'soft treatment' – for the men to have a day of rest to bond with one another. They also might have started losing people unless the Captain gave them a break.

To fight for others was to be a great soldier, his father had told Shang, and his grandfather to his son before that. Unity was power. A battalion bound by ties of comradeship and friendship fought much harder than one with no unity, in which the slightest knock could break everything apart because the men fought only for themselves.

True to his prediction the men were elated, and spent the entire day relaxing, drinking, trading stories and playing games. Money exchanged hands at speed as fortunes were gambled away and won, and even Shang was persuaded into playing a game of Xiangqui with one of the elder recruits to kill time. He won the game easily: he was a _Captain _now. Chi Fu was seen to disappear off in the direction of the lake that supplied this camp with water with a cloth wrapped around his head, and didn't return until well past noon.

What Shang _did_ notice that he had not seen Fa Ping all day, and he began to wonder what might have become of the boy. His horse was still tethered up with the others, so it was unlikely he had fled, but that could always be a technique to throw them off while he escaped. If he were planning to run away, now would be one of the only times he could do it.

It started to bother Shang around noon when he did not see Ping eating with any of the other men as lunch was prepared, and by the time the sun had started getting lower and Ping wasn't at dinner _either_ his mind got no peace for speculation on what might have become of the runt of his class.

He decided to casually patrol past the boy's tent – just to see if he had deserted or not – and set off whistling an old war tune, as if that might make him seem totally inconspicuous.

Not one to bond well with the others, Ping's tent had been clumsily set up out of line with the others against a frail tree. No one would help him after the incident on the first day that had everyone picking up individual grains of rice from the ground, so only by tying it to the sapling could he keep the thing up at all.

Shang approached it furtively, appearing at first to be inspecting the grounds, and once he'd checked that no one was paying attention to him, he stole up to the shelter and stooped down, drawing back one of the curtain ends with a fingertip.

He didn't even really need to look inside, because he could hear already the snoring from within. Peering through a small gap in the canvas, he saw that Ping was lying on his belly fast asleep.

Shang sighed and stood up, leaving him be. Fa Zhou's son was at a natural disadvantage to everyone else because he was still growing, so he'd need more time to recover and didn't have half the strength of an adult man. He was far too young for the army, in truth, but he'd turned up and they were in dire need of conscripts, so Shang couldn't turn him away. Not yet, at least.

Inside the tent, after Shang had left, something stirred underneath the covers. A tiny red dragon shot out from underneath the sheet covering Mulan, and hopped up and down as he yelled at the slumbering girl.

"Whoo-wee! THAT was a lucky break!" whooped Mushu. "If you hadn't had _me_ here Pretty Boy over there mighta seen more than he should've on a 'strapping young boy' like yourself, Mulan."

Luckily enough the Dragon had heard the Captain coming so had been able to drag the sheet up to Mulan's neck before Shang started peeking, covering anything that might suggest she was of the female persuasion, but it was a close call all the same. "Mulan? You listening to me Mulan?!" He poked Mulan's cheek.

"I don'... wanna..." she mumbled in her sleep. "No... stop that...th-the chickens!" She raised a hand and swatted it sluggishly at Mushu, then let it drop back onto the bedroll and rolled over, snoring a little quieter than before.

"Just like when you're awake, never listen to a _thing _I say," Mushu muttered to himself. The cricket chirped at him and he made a similar swatting motion as Mulan had. "I don't wanna hear it from you either, ya little grasshopper," he snapped; the cricket chirped at him again. "Of _course _I'm letting her sleep. I _know _she needs her rest. Just who here is the Guardian, eh?" Crick-ee chirped in as smarmy a way a cricket was capable of.

"Oh yeah, well I _will _be a Guardian after this," Mushu retorted. "Just you wait and see."

Mulan slept not only all of the seventh day but right through the night as well, waking up the next dawn when Mushu threw a bowl of cold water over her head. Nothing else seemed to so much as stir her; he'd tried.

"AhhI'mawake!" she blurted as she sat up, scrubbing the water out of her face with a frown. "What... what time is it?"

"Getting up time," Mushu responded. "You've got a busy day of training ahead of you, so go get some breakfast."

"What do you mean? The Captain gave us the day off," she said uncertainly.

"You _slept _all your day off, girl," the would-be Guardian explained. "It's dawn tomorrow morning."

"What?!" she wailed. "I was asleep the whole day?"

"And then some," Mushu remarked. "Even the Captain came by to see what had eaten you."

"What do you... Captain _Li _came over here?!" The colour drained from Mulan's face.

"Don't bust a gut, I got your back," Mushu reassured her. "Your modesty is preserved an' he's got nothing to be suspicious about... _yet_. So get yourself up! There's a big day ahead!"

Mulan followed Mushu's advice and got herself up, then ate a breakfast big enough to rival one of Chien-Po's servings – she hadn't eaten in over a day after all.

"Ya trying to beef up or somethin', Ping?" came the familiar scratchy voice of Yao over her shoulder almost inevitably, even though she tried to get her face low enough in her bowl that she wouldn't be recognised; to no avail, unfortunately.

"That's a big breakfast for a pipsqueak like you," Ling observed, somewhat missing the irony again, considering strong breezes were in the habit of blowing _him _over.

"It is very healthy for a growing boy to have such an appetite," Chien-Po intervened. "This morning's breakfast is also very fine." Fine was hardly the word for it, but ever the optimist, Chien-Po did his best to look on the bright side.

"Didn't see ya yesterday," Yao said threateningly. "I was gonna give you a little somethin' I been keepin' for ya, but I'll give it ya now if you want, seein as you're so _hungry._" Mulan was still not interested in trying what Yao called a 'knuckle sandwich', but always quick to jump into a confrontation the man raised a fist and waited for a reaction.

However, Mulan – or Ping – did nothing, and simply carried on eating.

"Hey!" Yao snapped, and Mulan looked up at him, then looked back to her rice bowl. She was hoping that not rising to his threats might make him leave her alone – that's what her father had said to her when she was bullied by other children_ 'ignore them and they'll leave you alone'._

Before she could find out if it was working, a gong sounded outside and everyone jumped to their feet, abandoning their food, and rushed outside to line up for inspection by the Captain. Aside from a little jostling, Mulan got into line and stood to attention without causing _any _kind of disaster.

This day was going better than most already.

Shang walked down the lines inspecting everyone, but paused in front of Mulan with an amused look on his face.

"Awake at last?" he said caustically, and Mulan coloured – to think that he'd actually come to her tent and seen her when she was sleeping. She only hoped she hadn't been drooling, not that it'd be something he hadn't seen her doing before.

Meanwhile, Shang was a little confused by Ping's blushing. It was was a rather... _strange_ action for a boy of his age. He did look like the sensitive type, though, so perhaps he was just easily embarrassed. He had only teased him a little, and the boy had slept for nearly two days straight.

"Today the real training begins!" Shang announced to the troops. "However, to warm up first... everyone can do ten laps of the camp." There was a groan of frustration, but no one questioned the orders. It could be worse; ten laps now was nothing compared to what they'd been doing for the past week.

Much to her surprise, Mulan was completely rested and felt like a brand new person after her unexpected sleep-coma. She barely got out of breath in the warm-up, so it seemed that all that running had paid off.

However, it paid off for everyone else too, so she was _still_ at the back of the class. Once they had all filled back into camp, they found the Captain waiting for them on the outskirts of Camp, where the forest almost ran into their territory – an area that Shang seemed very keen to keep under his watch. While everyone was gone he had assembled bows, arrows, a whole bag of soft red fruits, and drawn a series of white circles on a few of the trees with chalk in preparation for the exercise.

"The first weapon that you will learn to use is the bow," he began, his voice containing a lyrical quality that made him easy to listen to even when instructing the most menial tasks. "Although simple, this is an essential weapon and important skill to have. Observe." He shed his robe, revealing his bare torso, as he was in the habit of doing, and picked up a bow.

He set down three of the fruits on a levered step by his foot, put not one but _three _arrows to his bow, and then stamped on the end of the step, throwing all three fruit up into the air at once.

He took a moment to gauge it and then released the bowstring and hit all three targets, spearing a fruit on each arrow and placing it exactly within one of the circles on the tree. There was a murmur of awe and envy in the assembly of men.

"You will all attempt only _one_ target," he added condescendingly before starting to hand out bows and quivers.

The moment that Mulan shouldered her quiver of arrows, something shot suddenly out of her sleeve into it. Something that had _insisted _he accompany her to training today to help her out.

"Mushu!" she hissed under her breath. "Be careful!"

"No one saw me!" a snappy voice said from inside the quiver.

"I don't want to take any chances though," she replied, and then looked up to hear Shang just _finishing_ explaining how to correctly fire a bow and arrow. Which was unfortunate.

"Fire when ready," the Captain ordered, and swiped his hand down through the air to signal the first shot. A flurry of arrows sprung forwards, and a wall of fruit leapt up, but unfortunately the two didn't meet at any point, and none of the arrows so much as grazed the trees either.

Mulan loaded an arrow as best as her intuition guided her, and strained to pull it back – she couldn't bend the bow very much, so she had much less power in her shot. Not to mention that if no one else could hit a target or a fruit, she knew _she_ didn't have a chance.

However, before she could prove herself right, Mushu slithered out of the quiver quick as a flash and speared one of the wayward fruits that he had grabbed a hold of onto the end of her arrow – making it look like she'd hit the fruit once she'd fired.

_Only_ once she'd fired, though, which was a stage she never reached because before she could release she felt a critical presence looming behind her. Looking over her shoulder, she came face to face with her Captain, who was giving her a foul look.

The cogs in her mind free-wheeled as she tried to come up with an explanation that didn't start 'My dragon did it...' but nothing supplied itself, and in the end she simply grinned at him hopefully, as if that could somehow bring a solution to the problem.

"Cheating is not going to improve your abilities," Shang remarked acidly, and Mulan looked away with a wince.

"Sorry," she mumbled, swearing to trap Mushu under a rock or something next time he wanted to come out and 'help' her. Shang reached out and pulled the fruit off the arrow.

"It won't fire properly with that on the end," he pointed out, and then carried on standing behind her as she tried to draw back the bow to fire properly. She didn't stand a chance at hitting the fruit, but maybe she could get one of the circles on the tree at least. "Your posture is wrong," he said sharply, and she shuddered, wishing for something to just swoop down and carry her away from this awful moment.

Shang assumed that 'Ping' hadn't been listening to his instructions, probably too busy trying to cheat, but gave her the benefit of the doubt anyway and reached out to take her arms in his hands. He moved her body to mirror his in the correct way of standing, and lined up the bow so it was straight and not angled as she had it before.

"You must hold it straight," Shang said, not noticing Mulan's ears going pink, as she was very aware that the Captain was completely bare chested and standing _very_ close to her, with his arms so close against hers so that she could actually feel the warmth of his body. "You can bring the string back much further if you pull it in only one direction, not diagonally. Lock this arm," he added, reaching out and tapping Mulan's elbow on her outstretch arm softly. "Now you can draw it further," he explained lastly, placing his first and last fingers on either side of hers on the bowstring and adding his strength to hers for a moment.

Even though she was pretending to be a man, Mulan couldn't exactly help how she had been raised, and right now all she could think about was the fact that a bare-chested man was _touching_ her, and she went almost dizzy with embarrassment. She could barely concentrate, and although she'd listened to all of Shang's instructions and did try to follow them, when she released the bowstring her arms had already gone weak and the arrow only flew a few feet before plummeting sadly to the ground.

She not only heard but _felt_ Shang sigh with disappointment against her, and then thankfully he let go.

"Keep working on it," he sighed, walking off to repeat the same unsuccessful exercise with some of the other trainees.

They carried on archery practice for several hours, until Mulan's arms burnt with the strain and she could barely pull back the bowstring at all – she did manage to improve a little – but Shang didn't return to offer any more advice. She was both glad for it and a little disappointed, although she wasn't sure the latter emotion was something to be encouraged.

When the archery exercises ended the Captain gave the me a little free time to eat and rest before the last training session of the day began. He noticed that while the other men slowly wandered back towards camp and collected into groups talking or playing card games, Ping made off for the far end right away.

Ever so slightly curious, and concerned about anyone – especially a weakling like Ping – going off on their own when there could be Huns anywhere just waiting for a chance to pick off soldiers, Shang made the appearance of heading back to his own quarters while keeping an eye on Ping. It turned out the boy was going to see his horse – Khan was by far the most valuable of all the horses that had been brought to the camp by men, Shang's own included; however, it was the horse of Fa Zhou, so such excellence was to be expected. Lingering outside his tent, Shang watched Ping coax the beast over and start stroking its nose, his mouth moving as he spoke to it.

Shang couldn't help but smile when he watched Ping suddenly throw his arms around the horse's neck and hug it – it must be hard for one so young to leave home, this was probably the first time he'd so much as left his village, and that horse was likely the only thing he had to remind him of his family.

It was then that Shang did something a little unusual. When the time came for the break to end and the men returned for the last training session of the day, instead of commanding them all to practice battle formations, he called for a separation of the men.

"Anyone with a horse will come with me," he announced, seeing the happiness in the faces of those men with horses, _especially_ Ping. "We will cover some riding and horse control techniques."

The group was only about eight strong, and whilst Shang tried to convince himself this sudden change in plans had nothing to do with Ping he didn't do too well at it, and decided not to bother thinking about it at all. He was going to train those with horses anyway, and he was the one making up the training program in the first place.

"I hope that I can safely assume you all ride well already," he began, and thankfully no one stopped him. Even Ping was competent, which he noted gratefully on the test-ride he led the group out on.

For Mulan as well as the other men it was a great change of pace to go out for a ride – so much running on foot was tiring, so to race across the land with the wind tearing at them was a great remedy to the dull pound of the past week.

Like this she could pretend she was just out on a ride in her village – pretend that she'd go home at the end of this, that her father would be waiting for her. She'd been almost too tired to become homesick, but it struck her in sudden waves, and she would realized how frightened she really was, how she could hardly believe she'd even done this in the first place. She was surviving though, and that was enough for now.

Unfortunately, having fun in training meant that it went by a whole lot faster than anything else, and before she even knew it the sun was setting and the Captain ordered everyone to end for the day. They had strayed quite a way from camp, so it took a while to ride back, and Mulan noticed that some of the trees they rode past had marks in them from arrows. They couldn't be _their _arrows though, she thought, because there was no way anyone would be practising archery out here.

"Captain!" she called out to Shang, who slowed down and dropped back to answer her.

"Yes, Fa Ping?" he questioned.

"Whose arrows were these?" she asked innocently, pointing at the pitt-marks in other surrounding trees, where it was obvious more arrows had been pulled out of the bark. "We're so far away from camp."

"Just local hunters," Shang said stiffly, tensing up and looking around carefully – he'd been on his guard, but hadn't seen those marks until Ping pointed them out. There were no hunters, obviously, this area had no locals because they had all been driven out by the guerillas.

The forests were too good a cover for them: he was going to have to be even more careful. The marks were not fresh as there was hardened sap around them, but their presence alone on this riding track showed that men his father had been overseeing before him had brushes with Huns along this path. He was a fool to have ever taken these men out; they were sitting ducks for even an unskilled archer. All he could hope for was that no one was watching the pass right now, and that they'd get back to camp safely.

Shang returned to his quarters as soon as they arrived back in camp to muse on the pressing new threat, and did not leave again that evening. Mulan did much the same, in that she went straight to her own tent – the less time she spent around the men the fewer fights she got into – to find a bowl of Mushu's 'Special Fa Soup' waiting for her, this one with a dead bug in it.

"You need your protein," he argued in favour of her eating the bug, while Crick-ee quivered in terror hiding inside Mulan's pillow, fearing that he'd be next. Although Mushu couldn't make her eat the bug in the end, she did finish the rest of the soup and lie down to sleep after the most enjoyable days she'd had since she came here. Maybe, just _maybe _things wouldn't be so bad, she thought.

_Wrong._

The next day everyone awoke to the Captain informing them they were to set off for a hike in the mountains to practice some more training exercises, and when he said _hike _he meant vertical cliff-scaling. Watch the Guerillas try to catch them _now, _Shang reflected cunningly; there was no undergrowth to hide in up here, and it was far out of any archer's range from the forest itself.

When the cliff face became particularly challenging, the Captain ordered everyone to tether themselves into pairs with rope so that they could support their partner below them if they fell; well in theory at least. Mulan somehow ended up,_ somehow_ meaning by the other men's suggestions, with Chien-Po as her partner.

Her arms were still sore from the archery the day before, but with a cliff face threatening her she didn't have much choice but to fight the pain and try to follow the Captain, who was leading the group above her, but didn't allow anyone the comfort of being tied to him.

They were getting close to the top of the climb, and although no one had fallen yet, Mulan's fingers had gone completely numb and were scratched and bleeding from gripping the sharp rocks. Then she must have grabbed an edge particularly hard at some point, because her palm had started bleeding – enough for the blood to run down her arm – and not long after that she started to feel dizzy.

"No... not now..." she said desperately as the edges of her vision started to blue, "please not now..." She had no such luck, because her head began to spin so much she couldn't feel direction anymore and she only just had the sense to yelp before her vision blacked out and she felt herself slip.

Hopefully, she reasoned in her last few moments, Chien-Po would have a good enough grip to catch her, and she wouldn't die. _Or _Chien-Po would be dragged off the wall with her and they'd take out everyone else below them, but before she could fall very far, Shang jumped effortlessly down the cliff and grabbed hold of her wrist. Pulling her up to the level of his waist he started to shake Mulan roughly.

"Ping! _Ping!_ Wake up!" he ordered, but to no effect, as she was to all appearances out cold and not coming back for some time, so Shang had no choice but to climb the rest of the way with one arm carrying her. It was tricky, but not beyond him, and he managed to keep from dragging Mulan face-first up the wall as well.

Dumping her at the top of the climb, Shang waited for the rest of the men to follow and then took the bucket from the supply bundle he'd had one of the more competent men carry instead of a partner, and filled it up with cold water at the spring he knew ran through these grounds.

Returning, he threw the whole thing over Mulan, and she bolted upright screaming the name 'Mushu!' at the top of her voice.

"Mushu?" Shang echoed quizzically.

"What? I?... I'm alive?!" she gasped.

"Just about," he replied. "But you could've died." His expression hardened as he spoke. "This _cannot _happen again, Ping. I won't always be there to catch you."

"No sir, I'm sorry sir," she grovelled. "I didn't mean to... I just..."

"You can clean yourself up at the spring," he interrupted, obviously uninterested in her excuses, pointing in the direction of the stream. Mulan crawled away and washed her hands and face in the fresh water, and she had a long drink as well to steady herself, as well as scrubbing the dirt out of the cut in her hand.

Shang didn't want to set bad examples or habits by bailing Ping out like this over and over, but he could hardly have let him fall and not only kill himself but potentially everyone else. He sighed as he set up the things for this next exercise – Fa Ping was proving to be no less trouble than his initial reputation had boded, and it was getting tiresome already.

"You must always maintain balance in combat," Shang began to narrate to the troops as he took the full bucket and balanced it on top of his head – the thing had a slight groove to accommodate the men's topknots, and sat quite stably on top of him. He brought up his staff from a relaxed hold in one hand to positioned for combat in both. "Find your centre." He took a calming breath.

"There are rocks by your feet," he instructed. "Throw as many as you please." Although they hesitated at first, thinking it was some kind of a trick, the men soon gladly tried to hit the Captain with stones for imposing this horrible climb upon them. However, in a few swift movements he deflected every single one that came at him with the staff, spinning it deftly to block them all; even flipping it behind his back when he was done and extending an arm in front of him. All without spilling a drop of water.

"Who will try now?" he challenged, and a deathly silence fell among the men, _none _wanting to subject themselves to the humiliation that would undoubtedly follow.

"Uh, I will," piped up a voice from the back, and Mulan made her way to the front. She couldn't do any worse than she was already doing now, so she reasoned that she might as well try to regain something. No one else would volunteer anyway, so she was just saving them the trouble of having to go first. She thought that she might as well accept she was the bottom of the class and learn to live with it.

"All right then," Shang said reluctantly, and stepped aside to allow Mulan to take his place. He set the bucket on top of her head and handed her the staff. He'd barely stepped out of the way when the first stones came flying, and more followed before she'd even gained her balance. She tried to duck, and at once the bucket flipped, landed on her head, drenching her again, and she swung the staff around blindly from underneath.

Although, by some miraculous stroke of luck, she hit one of the stones, and it came flying straight for Shang, who _fortunately _was able to dodge it this time, and it bounced off Chien-Po's belly. In a somewhat sad state, Ping lifted up one corner of the bucket and peered out from underneath sheepishly – she tried, didn't she?

Shang sighed, staring hard at the teenager before him. There probably wasn't much more than six years between them, but it seemed like so much more, looking at the _child_ he saw in Ping. He wondered how this boy could _ever_ become a tool of war, and found himself severely lacking in answers.

* * *

Dun-nurrrr. Man, it actually took me a lot longer than I imagined to carve this out of the original version I have in my master document. Yay for improvements!

Thanks for reading! The next part should be on your screens by friday. XXX


	3. Goat

La la la-la laaaa, I told you I'd get it updaaaateeeed.

Dedicated to all my girls, whom I love and who beat this thing out of me. Who listen to me talk about how much I hate _Mulan 2_.

* * *

While his men were still in the mountains Captain Li Shang taught – or _attempted_ to teach at least – the basics of outdoor survival to his men. Simple things like catching fish and starting fires.

However, nothing ever seemed to be 'simple' when Fa Ping was involved, because on his first attempt to fish barehanded he managed to 'fish' the short recruit Yao's _foot _out of the stream, completely toppling the man himself and almost drowning him. She bashfully put his leg back down, but the damage was done.

Shang really hadn't expected to find himself laughing on this trip – not with the Huns and the poor progress of the men on his mind – but the scene was too funny not to laugh. Ping proudly holding up what he thought was a fish, only to realize it had _toes_, and then looking down to see his comrade underwater in the stream blowing bubbles of fury.

He covered his mouth with his hand as if scratching his chin so the men wouldn't see, but he'd laughed all the same.

After a light meal of fire-roasted fish, which Chien-Po offered to prepare, as he had more skill in his _chopsticks_ than the camp cook had in his entire body, they set off downhill again; this time taking a path that could be walked, instead of descending the steep rockface they had climbed up. The Captain was not deaf to the moans and grumbles he heard behind him as he led the way, complaining that it was unfair to have braved the cliff if there was a footpath available, and it weighed heavily on his mind.

It was now almost a certainty that rouge Huns were roaming these areas, looking to disrupt the training of any new troops and kill the presiding officers – looking to kill _him – _and these men couldn't even catch a fish. It just wasn't enough; he was going to have to increase the intensity of their training. They were running out of time.

By the time the hike ended and they had reached the camp it was getting dark, so Shang's men foolishly thought that would be it for the day.

"Not so fast," he announced, his serious tone halting them in their sluggish tracks. "No one here is dismissed." There was another groan, and he reacted to it sharply. "This is _war_, men!" he snapped. "The Huns will not stop when it gets dark and you are tired. They will not stop until they have reached the Capital and taken our Emperor."

There was a murmur of discontent at the Captain's strong words – everyone was loyal to the Emperor, how dare he try to question that – but the day had been long and hard. Shang would not waver, though, and by torchlight presented the next item of training.

"You must always be prepared for a night attack," he lectured, fixing a quiver to his shoulder and sending for his bow. "Burning arrows are used as signals, and potentially to thin out the lines before you reach close combat." He drew an arrow from its quiver and passed the tip across the flames of the torch by his side, lighting the swaddling wrapped just behind the arrowhead. He aimed for Mulan, who was standing at the very edge of the group. She dropped to the ground with a yelp and covered her head with her hands as Shang fired and the arrow passed over her and landed in the ground, where it continued to burn.

"That's the fastest I've seen you move all day, Ping. Although the Huns do not have our gunpowder technology, any fool can set an arrow on fire," Shang continued, lighting another arrow and firing over the heads of the other men, who babbled among themselves and scattered, wondering if the Captain had suddenly lost his mind.

"I would run, if I were you..." remarked Shang calmly, setting up another arrow and aiming directly into the group; there was a roar of panic and chaos erupted as the men pushed and shoved to get away from the line of fire. "Avoiding arrow fire is a valuable skill," he added, letting off another arrow and smirking to himself at his own wordplay.

"You should be grateful!" he bellowed after the men at last, this time firing two arrows at once while the men continued to run around wildly within his range. "These arrows are much heavier than normal ones, so the burning cloth slows them down!"

Yao didn't seem to be too grateful, because he tripped while fleeing and ended up with an arrow in the backside; jumping up in the air he grasped his rear and screamed like a girl, but Shang merely told him to pull it out and carry on – these arrowheads weren't sharpened enough to do any real damage.

"If you think that's bad, you should feel a real arrow," he scolded the man as he whimpered and Chien-Po had to remove the now extinguished article from his charred behind. Inwardly Shang hoped that they _wouldn't_, because if there were guerillas in this area they would be using skilfully crafted flight arrows – light and thin, with tiny but incredibly sharp heads. They could be eighty yards away and still get a clean hit, and one shot from these specialists' bows would remove a soldier from his lines permanently.

He had to be careful from now on, and he had to toughen up on the men too. The _real _training needed to start.

"I want to see everyone in formation at dawn tomorrow!" he demanded when he finally dismissed the men to their tents. "Lateness will _not_ be tolerated."

Fortunately enough the exercise with the flaming arrows did seem to put the fear of god into them, because everyone – even Ping – was present and accounted for in the morning. Shang hadn't actually slept much that night as he decided to keep watch alone, not least because no one else was competent enough to share shifts with him. Despite this he didn't let it show, and simply ordered the men to pair off for sparring.

"You are never without a weapon," he said prophetically as he paced up and down. "If you lose your sword, have no bow, then your weapons are your fists, your legs, your teeth." Judging by Ling's face, he'd been doing some fighting with his teeth already, having unsuccessfully tried to crack a slab of rock by headbutting it for a bet, it would seem. Even if his head had withstood the impact, his teeth and gums were looking worse for wear thanks to the endeavour.

Hardly to Mulan's surprise, she ended up the last, un-partnered person in their odd-numbered group, as her quest to make anyone at all like her was so far not succeeding. Therefore she unfortunately ended up standing opposite Captain Li to spar, wondering whether he'd kill or just maim her.

"Don't look so frightened," Shang said unconvincingly, because as per usual he wore nothing above the waist and even his _muscles_ had muscles.

Whilst it was supposedly attractive for a man to be 'shapely and strong', with 'broad shoulders' and 'powerful arms' – or so the girls Mulan had gone to the Matchmaker with fantasised – it was entirely more terrifying to stand before such a man when he was quite likely going to punch your head off your shoulders. Mulan couldn't say she found any part of it attractive in the slightest.

Shang had been firing burning arrows into a crowd yesterday, so she fully expected to wake up in her next incarnation after this. Probably an earthworm, considering the bad karma she was going to get for impersonating a soldier. On the subject of which, she thought she better attempt to man it up a bit now lest the Captain start suspecting girly things about her.

"Heh! Heh! He_Urk_!" Mulan laughed in such an exaggerated manner that Shang assumed she was trying to mock him, until she managed to inhale a passing fly and began to cough violently.

"Don't go easy on me, Captain," she croaked after she'd recovered, in her best growly voice. "I'm just worried about you. Heh! Heh! Heh!"

Shang simply raised a single eyebrow at her, saying nothing.

"Simple sparring, okay?" he said patiently, aware that he was closer to playing with a puppy than having a genuine match. However, Mulan didn't know how she would even _try_ to go about throwing a punch at her Captain, so just stood there awkwardly until Shang sighed. He threw out a weak feint to her face with his right, which she blocked, only just realizing it _was_ a feint when she saw his elbow coming as he turned around and chopped across where her head would've been had she not managed to duck.

Remaining on the ground, she hazarded to glance upwards at Shang to see if it was over yet, and her hesitation cost her, because he drew back his arm and then threw out an open-handed hit as she went to stand. It landed on her cheek and over one eye, and although he was obviously going easy on her the force was more than enough to send Mulan flying backwards and into a nearby tree.

"Okay! Time out!" Mushu, appearing on a branch of the sapling suddenly, rinsed out a wet towel on her face and clapping in her ears. "Now he got you, Mulan, but look, he's distracted now. He thinks you're out for the count."

"I don't wanna' have egg noodles, Baba..." Mulan slurred as she stared up at Mushu in hazily. "I wan' rice balls..."

"Get it together, Mulan!" Mushu snapped, and slapped her in the face a couple of times. She responded by punching him off his branch, luckily enough removing him from view just as Shang looked back in her direction. Gradually collecting herself, she rubbed her sore eye and then struggled to her feet.

Staggering back towards the Captain, she put up her arms and returned to a defensive stance as she'd been taught; he looked genuinely surprised to see her still standing. This time he waited for her to strike, which eventually she did, throwing as hard a punch as she could in his general direction.

He deflected it easily and then stepped inwards, breaking her posture as he moved into her body-space and countering with a soft elbow to her jaw; because he'd unbalanced her with the inward step, the hit knocked her straight over and she landed on her right arm with a crunch. Nothing broke, thankfully, so she just gripped the earth with her other hand and pushed herself back up. She _had_ to. She just had to prove she had some kind of manliness to her.

"You won't learn just getting hit," Shang said resolutely, but still Mulan stood up and got back into stance. He struck again, and she deflected it as he just had with her, but when she moved to hit him he already had a block prepared, and grabbing her wrist twisted her arm and locked it behind her back effortlessly. He held it until she stopped struggling, and then released her.

"You are still young, Ping, and small for your age," he explained, waving Mulan off as she tried to return to a fighting stance again. "You cannot match anyone here in strength."

Mulan was hoping that small and weak was _all_ he thought she was, because sparring was a bit closer to any of the men than she wanted to be, for fear of them seeing right through her disguise.

"What am I supposed to do then?" she asked frustratedly. "I'm training as hard as I can!"

"Sometimes that isn't enough," Shang said coldly, and Mulan let her head droop. There was only so much she could do with this body, what was there to do if that wasn't good enough? She couldn't stand to be sent back home in disgrace; a failed son as well as a failed daughter.

"Then... I'll...I'll think of another way!" she blurted suddenly, surprising herself and the Captain with her forthrightness. "You'll see, Captain. I'll work something out, I promise..." She rubbed her chin with her hand, and then looked back up at him.

"Liiiii!" came a grating voice from a little way off. Shang glared daggers at Chi Fu, who was running towards them urgently, and upon noticing the unwelcoming look he was receiving corrected his term of address; in front of the men at least, he had to show respect. "I mean...C-Captain Li! A word, if you will," the bony man babbled, beckoning Shang away from Mulan and the troops.

"Better start work on that 'other way'," he said to Mulan as he left, his voice half-scathing and half-sincere.

He stepped inside his quarters as Chi Fu bade him and stood by the door with his arms folded over his chest. "What is it?" he questioned, noticing that the perpetual thorn in his side was actually looking nervous for once, instead of plain smug.

"I was heading out to bathe in the spring when-" Chi Fu began erratically.

"You left camp alone?" Shang interrupted.

"You're telling me!" he spluttered. "I had barely bent down to take off my slippers, when LOOK!" With a great flourish and far too much volume, he presented his hat to Shang. A hat that now sported a dainty, cut-throat sharp arrow through it. "I hurried back so quick I left all my bathing salts out there! The bandits have them now!"

"Bandits?" Shang echoed.

"Well that must have been what they were – bandits after my finery and riches. I'll have them for this! Round up the least incompetent of this rabble and-"

Shang didn't speak but gave a look that suggested he wanted silence, and Chi Fu trailed off, the only sounds to be heard being those of the men outside and the odd cricket chirping.

"I think it is more than bandits," he said quietly, coaxing the consul over so that he could hush his voice even more. "My father left word of a group of guerillas moving through this area," he whispered, "Hun Guerillas," he added when appropriate fear did not strike the other man's face.

Chi Fu instantly lost what little colour he had, as he realized that had it not been for his stooping to remove his shoes he would be wearing that arrow through his brain and not his hat.

"Then we must-"

"No," Shang spoke over the man easily in spite of being his junior – matters of the enemy and battle were under his authority only. "You were an easy target, finely-dressed and alone. They are still being cautious," he mused. "To tell the men now would only panic them. They will train more efficiently when not in fear of their lives." He glanced out through the gap in the drapes at the front of the tent, watching the men outside.

"If it gets dangerous, we can lead them into the mountains," Shang continued. "They will be safe there, and I can complete the training before we tackle the threat."

"Training, don't make me laugh!" Chi Fu scorned, peering outside with disdain. "It would take a dynasty to make one good soldier out of that mess."

"I am not willing to discuss this," Shang replied steelily. "They are under _my_ authority."

"Hmph," Chi Fu snorted, and swept out of the tent. "We shall see about that, _Captain _Li."

Shang sat down and sighed, resting his head in his hands. This was certainly a lot more stressful than he'd thought it would be. Somehow he'd expected to be moulding eager young men into skilled and powerful soldiers, building a fighting force that would crumble the Huns. The closest he had to an eager young man was Ping, and that was saying a _lot_.

Thankfully enough there were no more incidents involving stray arrows or suspicious activity for the rest of the week, which was definitely a gift, as Shang was able to set a regular schedule for the men to work to. Order was fundamental to a strong army – everyone had to know the system and what their place was in it.

However the situation only held until the end of the week; although the men were still responding slowly to the training as morale plummeted, but the real collapse was almost entirely down to the actions of a single troublesome recruit who outright rejected any system that attempted to place him in it.

_Fa Ping_. Who else?

A full cartload of fire arrows and gunpowder rockets had been delivered by an escorted convoy, so Shang took the opportunity to teach the men how to use and aim them. He even made a dummy Hun out of a sack and some spare armour, and set it up on the outside of camp for target practice – hopefully the display of firepower from the rockets might also intimidate any of the guerillas watching them.

However, the entire training, much like Ping's rocket, entirely backfired. Shang had not been watching, so he had not seen that Ling had in fact kicked the support out from under Mulan's rocket just after she lit the fuse, and she had pulled it upright in panic. Either way, she fired the missile backwards into camp, and it (unluckily or luckily, depending on your perspective) landed on Chi Fu's tent, incinerating the whole thing.

Whilst the men were impressed to see the effects the rockets could have when they hit something, Chi Fu was obviously much less pleased, not least because he thought that rather than scare off any watching guerillas they would be encouraged after seeing the appealing state of the men.

"You might as well just set off fireworks letting _everyone _know where we are!" he raged to Shang in the privacy of the Captain's quarters at the end of the day.

"They know where we are," he replied tersely. "This camp hasn't moved for months."

"Then perhaps we _should_!" retorted Chi Fu. "Yes. Move the camp to a new location. That might do it..."

"That would cause more problems than it would resolve," Shang said wearily, untying his hair and rubbing his scalp with his fingers therapeutically. "They could just follow us and attack while we are completely defenceless. We _aren't_ moving the camp," he stated, but in the end allowed himself to be grated down into agreeing to lead the entire camp – Chi Fu included – on a two day expedition through the mountains, leaving the camp to appear to any onlookers as if it had been abandoned and hopefully throwing them off. They were to leave at dawn.

Mulan was _particularly_ worried about this, as she was well aware that everyone would be sleeping out in the open together, and she couldn't be sure that she wouldn't give away her secret somehow in her sleep. There was no way out of it though, so on the morning they were due to leave she reluctantly packed up her things.

"I'm gonna have to come with you," Mushu insisted. "Who knows _what_ you'll do if I'm not there to watch over you. Hell, I turn my head away for a minute and you go and blow up the Emperor's consul."

"I blew up his tent, not him," Mulan corrected.

"And that's any better?! Girl you're gonna be setting fire to Captain No-Shirt next."

"Don't call him that!" she said in alarm.

"Hell I bet he even takes it off to do _paperwork_," the dragon retorted. "Lifting that awful heavy calligraphy brush..."

"Mushu," she reprimanded. "Look, I don't want to go on this trip any more than you want me to, but orders are orders."

"Couldn't you pretend to be sick?" Mush suggested, and then adopted a falsetto of her voice. "Oh Captain, I'm so unwell, it's my time of the mon... Hm, wait, on second thoughts that might not go down so well." Mulan just scowled at him.

"I don't know _why_ he's making us do this," she grumbled, "we were training fine before." Crick-ee started chirping manically at Mushu, who in response jumped up and every scale on his body flared.

"Whaddya mean the Huns?!" he yelled at the bug, who chirped at him some more. "You heard what? You little eavesdropping whatd'chyacallit."

"The Huns?" she said worriedly.

"Crick-ee here says he heard the Captain saying the hike was a way to throw off the Huns outside camp – make them think you'd all packed up and gone home," Mushu explained very worriedly.

"Outside the camp!" Mulan gasped. "You mean _here_? There are Huns _here?!_"

"He sure don't mean anywhere else," the dragon retorted, and Mulan remembered the arrows she'd pointed out to Shang a while back; 'hunters' he'd said, 'just local hunters' – if they were hunting soldiers, that was.

However, if this really was the case, she suddenly understood why the Captain had been so tough on them recently; if there were rouge Huns spying on their camp from the forests, they could attack at any moment, and she could see as well as anyone no one was in a state to defend the camp.

"I have to warn everyone," she rushed, about to race out of her tent when Mushu grabbed her by the leg of her pants and pulled her back.

"Oh no you don't!" he insisted as she tried to drag him along with her. "Apparently the Captain wants to keep it a secret so no one panics. Not to mention if you suddenly turn up knowing about this he's gonna think you've been spying on him, and you'll get in even _more _trouble."

She stopped, as he did have a point. What could she do then? She had this information but she couldn't use it.

With a heavy heart, therefore, she joined the rest of the men at sunrise; racking her brains for some way she could help Shang. She didn't like him that much, but he was a good commander at least, and he didn't bully her as much as the rest of the men did.

He was waiting for everyone, bare-chested and stony-faced as usual.

"I told you," Mushu whispered from under Mulan's collar into her ear. "He probably only puts it on so he can take it off again.

"Shhh," she hissed, and Shang shot her a suspicious look.

"These are your packs," he announced, pointing towards a pile of the bamboo staffs with bags on either end; they were mostly full of rice and a few cooking essentials, but they were still pretty heavy. "Take one each, and then follow after me. The Emperor's consul will honour us by accompanying on horseback."

Chi Fu gloated and sent Mulan a dirty look – he hadn't forgiven her for trying to kill him, even if Shang did point out that she tried to kill a lot of people without meaning to. It wasn't personal, Ping was just a danger to people around him.

They set off, and things went fine at first – after all, a simple hike was much easier than a vertical climb or endless running. However, as the day wore on and the men tired, Mulan began to fall behind. The packs were heavy, and it was taking a double effort of energy for her to walk with all the extra weight, so she tired a lot quicker. As fatigue tightened its hold on her she started losing balance of the packs, and began to wobble as she walked when her arms got too weak to hold the staff properly level across her shoulders. She started feeling faint and dizzy eventually, but struggled on for another hour at least, although it was only delaying the crash.

When eventually the strain was simply too much, all it took was for her to catch her toe on a pothole in the path to make her trip and fall flat on her face; still conscious so able to feel the burning shame of her failure.

"Come on Mulan, now's not the time for napping," Mushu said urgently as he raced out of her shirt and tried to push her off the ground. "Quick quick! Stay with me, girl," he pleaded as her eyes drooped and went hazy, her exhaustion. "Come on Mulan! How many fingers am I holding up? Wait. I don't _have_ fingers.... How many claws am I holding up?!" Mulan groaned and took in a deep, dusty breath.

"I'm gonna count to five and you're gonna get back up, okay?" Mushu bargained. "Right, _one_, two, three, fo-" Suddenly he raced back into her shirt, and Mulan forced herself to look up and see what had caused her alleged Guardian to stop.

Shang towered over her, frowning in a way that showed disappointment more than anger; before she could try to plead an excuse with him, he bent over and picked up her pack from on top of her. Dropping it over his shoulders to join the one he already carried, he turned his back and began to jog ahead toward the rest of the men.

The fact that he wouldn't even talk to her was possibly the worst thing about it, and although she'd come this far without crying once yet, Mulan was very, _very _close at that point.

Slowly and painfully, she struggled to her feet, rubbing her aching shoulders and then propping herself up against the side of the path, gasping into her hand, with which she tightly covered her mouth with to muffle the embarrassing sounds of exhaustion she was making.

She moved on when she was able to, and just about reclaimed the distance she'd lost between her and the rest of the men, but trailed behind deliberately because the thought of having to confront everyone's looks as she wandered along with no pack and the Captain carried two was just too much for her to deal with now.

The sun was beginning to set, and after a while they all stopped to bed down on a plain overlooking the camp they left behind. Most people quickly demolished a bowl of questionable food and then slept where they fell; within about forty minutes of stopping almost everyone was asleep.

However ,the Captain sat up on the edge of the cliff, looking down at the camp intensely, so that Mulan suspected he was watching to see if any men came out of the surrounding woods to investigate.

She approached him nervously, desperate to say something about her failings today, to somehow explain it all away, even if she had no explanation. Maybe to just make it up to him, if she could.

"Um... Captain," she whispered once she was just a step away from him. He didn't react to her voice or even turn to look at her.

"Go to sleep, Ping," he said coldly. "You need to rest more than anyone."

"Y-you've..." she stuttered, begging her voice not to give way, "you've been carrying double the weight, maybe you should rest too. I can keep watch for a while," she offered, but at this he just glanced at her over his shoulder and scowled.

"You are in no place to do anything," Shang stated. "Just go."

"But sir..."

"That is an _order_, Fa Ping," he hissed, and interrupted when she tried to speak to him regardless. "I have nothing to say to you," he said cruelly, looking at her with what could only be described as contempt, before turning his back on her and casting his gaze back over the camp.

Feeling rather like someone had just shot her straight in the heart, Mulan retreated to the very edge of the sleeping men. As she lay down she noticed her hands trembling, so curled up in a ball, gripping her knees to her chest to try and stop the shaking, but instead it spread through her entire body, and before she knew it, tears joined the party as she felt them running warm down her face.

She hadn't cried since she left home; she hadn't shed so much as a tear whether she was beaten, exhausted, shot at, insulted, bullied or called a weakling by all the men in camp, none of whom even liked her. So why had Li Shang reduced her to tears with such sparse and empty words? Why was this the thing to finally break her down? He hadn't directly insulted her, he'd barely said a thing, yet it hurt so much more than anything else.

She cried even though she was biting her lip hard enough to cut it trying to make herself stop, even though she knew Shang was awake and would hear her sobs, and it would make him think even _worse _of her. Even though she'd known this moment was coming sooner or later, and everything else had just been putting it off. In spite of all this, she was still reduced to uncontrollable tears to think that now even Captain Li had just _given up _on her.

* * *

Reviews are appreciated, but not compulsory. This story isn't about the reviews, it's about THE LOVE, MAAAN.


	4. Dragon

Almost late, but a little prodding at the last minute hopefully did the job. I'm sick though, so y'all better be grateful! :P

* * *

Captain Li Shang knew that he'd made Ping cry. He knew even before he heard the sounds of the boy trying to cover it up. He _should _have felt no sympathy; it was Ping's failings that earned him such treatment, and his weaknesses that allowed him cry.

He was supposed to be training an army, not running a daycare.

However, as he sat there under the full moon, knowing that he and Ping were the only ones awake while he kept watch and the boy cried, he felt _awful_. Like he had violated some kind of moral order.

It couldn't go on like this for so many reasons. Ping was a liability to the men, their weakest link and a walking accident zone. He was too young to be here in the first place, and improving slower than everyone else. He was weak, he hadn't bonded with the other men, and on top of it all Shang took _pity_ on him.

Ping compromised his ability to command as he should; when he ought to punish him with a beating Shang merely sent him to clean the mess tent. When he caused brawls between the men Shang let him get away with verbal warning. If he caught Ping trying to cheat during training he gave him one-on-one attention. Then today, when he collapsed...

If it had been anyone else, Shang would've ordered them to stand up and carry on with their pack. He would've let them fall down again and again until the end of the day, but Ping.

He pitied him, and his job here wasn't to pity.

The boy was a danger to himself and everyone, and if the Huns attacked he'd be the first to go, and... well, Shang didn't want to be responsible for his death. Such a young man, practically still a child. He didn't want to send _the _Fa Zhou word that his son had been killed before he even completed his basic training; that he had died without honour miles from the front. He wouldn't let that rest on his conscience.

So it was clear what had to happen when they returned to camp, when this pointless exercise to appease Chi Fu ended. Ping had to go.

The next day was not much better than the first, and Mulan also found herself refused the chance to even pick up her pack again. Shang took it before she got to it and wouldn't even speak to her, ignoring her pleas to let her take it back and prove herself.

She knew long before they arrived back at camp that Shang was expelling her. The rest of this was just waiting for the axe to fall. She walked at the very back of the procession, her head hung, sighing because she couldn't cry any more.

"Come on, girl," Mushu said softly from her shoulder. "Don't look so down."

"It's useless, Mushu," she said. "I'm as good as gone."

"Now don't talk like that, you don't know until you know," he replied, but the uncertainty in his tone was evident; even her 'guardian' knew that she didn't stand much of a chance with things as they were.

"You saw what happened earlier," she groaned. "I'm a failure."

"Now now!" Mushu snapped with a little more fire. "Just look back at how you were when you first got here! Back then you wouldn't have made it a quarter of the way you have now. You've gotten stronger. Hell, when you punched me the other day I thought the ancestors had whacked me one from the spiritual plain!" Mulan managed to smile a little, but it soon dropped again.

"It's not enough, though," she mumbled. "I just can't keep up."

"Well then, you've... you've just gotta think of a shortcut!" Mushu said triumphantly, and she smiled weakly, thinking back to the time she promised to Captain Li that she would think of 'another way'. A lot of luck she'd had with _that_.

Still, it wasn't over until it was over, so she decided that she'd keep on going until the very end. Perhaps her father would forgive her, although returning in disgrace was hardly a good look. She could beg, though, and maybe she would be accepted home again. As long as her family could all be together that'd be enough for her.

It was the middle of the night when the trip finally ended and all the men were happily returned to camp and their comparatively luxurious tents. Mulan was on her way back to hers, hoping that the orders would at least wait until morning, when she saw him approaching. He walked with Khan already, the reins held firmly in Shang's hands – normally her horse reacted aggressively to unfamiliar people who tried to control him, but the Captain seemed to have tamed him easily enough. Even her horse recognised a true soldier when he saw one.

"You're not suited for war, Fa Ping," Shang said unfeelingly when she was close enough to hear. "Pack up your things. You're going home."

"Sir-" she said weakly.

"It's over," he interrupted. "You know the reasons why." He sighed heavily as he looked her unappraisingly up and down . "Perhaps in a few years you will do, but I have my reservations. Some men are just not destined for battle."

"Then what _am_ I destined for?!" Mulan pleaded; her emotions were running away with her. "I don't have a clue who or what I am, but I'm _trying_-"

"This is not the place for soul-searching," Shang snapped. "This is a _war_. It is dangerous, even out here, and I-"

"You mean the Huns?" she cut him off forcefully, and saw the look of surprise in his face that had silenced him. "Those arrow marks I pointed out: they're not locals. They're Huns, aren't they, Captain Li?" Shang's face returned to its usual steely expression.

"Yes," he said icily. "I don't know how you found out, but they are. Guerillas are in these lands. _That _is why you need to go home."

"But I can fight them!" she protested. "I can shoot well enough now, and I can ride and I..."

"You think they can't do all that?" he interjected angrily. "They do it and they do it _better_. I would rather send you home in disgrace than word of your death." The Captain's voice was barely below yelling now. "A worthless death has no purpose or value, and I will not rob a man of his son for nothing!"

Mulan took the reins as he forced them upon her, unable to argue another word, and watched Shang turn his back and walk off.

"Go home, Ping. You're through," were his last, cruel-to-be-kind, words.

Mulan had nothing left to say, so she too turned away and began the slow, shameful walk towards her tent. She would leave before the sun rose tomorrow – it was too dangerous to do so at night, but she wanted to avoid seeing Shang again at all costs.

She hadn't taken three steps when a strange shadow passed across her face, and looking towards the cause Mulan saw the climbing post a little way off with Shang's arrow still in it. No one had been able to get it yet, in spite of daily attempts to retrieve it from various men.

It occurred to her in a wild flight of fancy that if _she _were to somehow reach it everything might be forgiven. She'd get a second chance at least. Imagine the look on Shang's face.

Not to mention that at this stage anything was worth a try, so with the desperation of knowing this could be her very last chance she ran to the place where the weights were kept. She threw open the box and lifted out the metal discs, encouraged to discover that they felt a lot lighter than they did back on the first day. Compared to the kettle the cook used to boil rice or to the packs from the trek, these things were far lighter. _Just maybe_, it occured to her, she could actually do this.

However, what she forgot was that she had to climb up a straight post carrying them, and had barely fastened the ropes to her wrists and jumped up onto the trunk when she fell straight back down simply from the force swinging back in the opposite direction.

Landing on her behind, she sat for a moment and stared up at the pole. She couldn't match anyone in strength, so if they couldn't climb up straight there was no way she'd be able to. Another way, she just had to think of _another way _to do it: a shortcut, like Mushu said.

She lifted one of the stones again; they still weighed almost as much as she did together, and for a moment she thought to imagine what she'd do if instead of these she had to climb with a partner. She wouldn't try to drag _them_ up, would she?

Of course not. They'd have to work together... work to- that was it. That was _it!_ She had to work _with _the weights, not against them.

She thought fast, resolving how the weights could be used to help her and not hinder her; then it all seemed so simple, so straightfoward. Why hadn't she thought of it before? You didn't try to swim _against_ the current of the river, did you?

She approached the post again, calm in her movements in spite of the whirlwind of her thoughts. She swung her arms around it, and the weights smashed against each other around the post. She repeated the action until she managed to get 'strength' and 'discipline' to link, spinning the ropes around each other so that they formed a single weighted loop around the post.

With shaking hands and fast breath, she flicked up her arms and dragged the weights up the back of the post; she could lift them without too much strain – all these weeks hadn't been entirely for nothing – and then pulled forwards, holding the loop against the post as she walked her legs up.

She was off the ground.

Trying not to rush, because to rush could ruin it, she took a deep breath and then pulled upwards again, edging the weights a little higher up. She followed with her feet, and made a little progress. It was working. It was actually _working!_

It had been late when they arrived, and with the days getting longer as spring approached she'd not made much process when the sky started getting lighter. It had been dark when they arrived, but now a lighter shade of blue tinged the east while she climbed, inching herself up the post one little bit at a time, locking her footwork in place with the weights as an anchor to stop herself falling down.

She was thankful now that she _hadn't _had to carry the pack down the mountain, as it had given her time to rest up, and even though she was tiring now she still felt strong as she passed the half way mark. Like she could seriously do this. He hands began to shake, but not from fatigue; her grin was impossible to hide, and she didn't dare look down at the ground for fear of pre-empting the success.

It was steady progress, not fast, and time slipped away quicker than she realized, because she had just reached the last third of the post when she heard something below her.

"Oh my! Is that Ping?" one of the men yelled in surprise as he set out extra early to get the first portion of breakfast – who else but Chien-Po?

"Look everyone! Ping!" he said energetically, running to the tent next to his and shaking it half down.

"Holy Emperor! It is!" the man inside cheered as he poked out his head to see what all the noise was about, and soon enough half the camp were crowded around her, and – to her surprise – they were _encouraging_ her.

"Go on Ping!" "You can do it!" "Keep going Ping!" they cheered and whooped, and Mulan felt as if all the time she'd spent here had suddenly cashed in all its worth at the same time. The men may have picked on her if she was down, but now they were rooting for her all the way – if she succeeded, it was a win for all of them, and for the first time Mulan felt as if maybe she belonged somewhere.

"Go on ya' little shrimp!" Yao roared louder than anyone else. "You can do it!" Even Yao believed in her now, it seemed; Yao who hounded her and tormented her before. _He _was on her side now.

"Wait til the Captain sees this!" someone else hollered, and Mulan's grin got even bigger. She _couldn't wait._

Distracted by the cheers of the men and her own fantasy running away with her, Mulan's footing suddenly slipped on the wood and she lost her grip. There was a gasp of fright and she dropped down a little, but the instinctive pull of her arms on the ropes held her in her place. Straight away she tightened her grip even more and winced as she dragged her own body weight back up to a safe spot. She wasn't going to fall now. No way. Not when she was so close.

Grunting as she pushed herself to her absolute limits to get her footing back, she heaved a huge sigh of relief and edged the weights up again, returning to the normal climb.

"Yaaay! Ping! Ping!" the men whooped, as if they were not tired or hurt or sleep deprived from two day hike they'd been dragged on against their will. As if they'd just turned up this very morning.

She knew that she couldn't try to leap for the top, even though it looked so very close now. If she leapt and lost the grip of the weights she could hitch a fast ride all the way to the ground, and not only would that ruin everything but she'd probably end up hurting herself too. She had to be patient, to work on it in tiny tiny steps, getting so close that she could see the rough edges of grain where the post had been sawn off. The arrow was almost touching the top of her head now. The last person to touch this was Shang, when he fired it up here, and now _she_ would be the one to bring it back.

However, this wasn't something to do by halves. Instead of just grabbing the arrow, Mulan bit into the shaft with her teeth – she couldn't spare a hand to yank it out – and kept on going. With the arrow in her mouth she climbed up until she could reach for the top of the post with her hands and grip it firmly, and then pulled the rest of her body up.

Careful to account for the weights, she put her palms flat against the post and pushed up on her arms, swivelling her hips to sit upright. Once she had her seat and wasn't in danger of falling off either way, she finally untwisted the weights and lifted them up, tying the ropes together at the loose ends and resting them over her shoulder. With her free hands she finally took the arrow out of her mouth: all she had to do now was wait.

Perhaps when she had first arrived the height might have daunted her, but after the little trip climbing up the cliffs in the mountains she was hardly bothered by it, although her head did spin at first when she dared to look down and see the ground so unfamiliarly far away from her. Now when she peeked downward, the men below waved up at her and yelled up congratulations, so she waved back with a grin twice as wide.

She could see the Captain's tent from here, and lined the arrow up with her eyeline toward it, refining her aim as she held it delicately between her fingers. He couldn't be much longer now.

Sure enough, when the chaotic sounds from outside finally roused Shang from sleep, and he stepped outside to see what in the Middle Kingdom could be causing such a fuss, nothing surprised him more than to see an arrow fly downwards and land at his feet. His first thought was of panic; that the Huns had attacked, but it took only a second for him to realize that it was one of their arrows – more specifically, it was one of _his_.

He looked up in the direction it had come from disbelievingly, unable to think of an explanation for why it had come down from so high up and landed at that steep angle, and then he saw her.

She was sitting at the top of the climbing post with her chin propped up on a hand and a grin like a river mouth.

She'd thrown down his arrow before him when only a few hours ago he'd told her to go home; that she was expelled from this unit. Now she sat there in the place that no one else had even got remotely close to, and smirked because she _knew_ she'd proven him wrong.

Shang was utterly speechless. He picked the arrow out of the ground and walked towards the crowd of men in a haze, too stunned to say anything, simply allowing the men to part around him. As he approached Mulan climbed off the top of the post and slid down, the weights still thrown over her shoulder; she was agile and precise in her movements and the Captain wondered if this was the first time the real Ping had shown up. As if something had been unlocked within.

"So... Captain..." Mulan said as she dropped the rest of the way down the post and landed at Shang's feet, lifting the weights off her shoulder and holding them out to him. "What are we doing today?"

"Uh..." he said softly, his good sense still trying to recover from the sudden affront Ping had made on him. "We..." He looked at Mulan and saw her staring up at him hopefully, begging with her eyes for him to take back his orders from the previous night. Although triumphant, Mulan looked pale and haggard, as she had not slept; she had tried _so _hard, and hoped that just maybe it would be enough this time.

"Well done, Ping," Shang said warmly at last, snapping out of his daze and patting her on the shoulder with a smile. "I'm proud of you."

Mulan had expected Shang's congratulations to be absolutely delicious; she wanted to make him eat his words with the solid conviction of having proved him wrong, having earned back her place completely through her own hard work. What she didn't expect was for him to _smile _at her, of all things, and then sound so sincere and happy for her victory. Immediately she felt her cheeks warming up, and had to look away because meeting his eyes would only make her blush more; even her stomach fluttered uncomfortably, finally receiving the approval she'd worked so hard to get.

"T-th-thank you, Sir," she stammered, and then at the first opportunity turned her back and scampered off among the men, hiding herself from him for the rest of the day. She feared that having to meet his eyes again before she calmed down might make her even more jumpy.

As surprised and secretly thrilled as Shang was that Ping had retrieved his arrow - it eased the guilt he'd been feeling non-stop since dismissing her for one - he did not let himself forget that in all other areas Ping had been falling behind, and one act was not enough to redeem all the other weaknesses. So with this in mind he kept a constant eye on her.

However, by some miraculous turn of events not only had Ping suddenly gained competency in most of the training exercises, but so had everyone else. Ping's singular success had motivated the entire body of men, and suddenly they were singing drinking songs and ballads as they exercised, instead of grumbling and picking fights with one another.

They were in such great spirits that at the end of the day, instead of retreating to their tents sourly as usual, many of the men stayed up chatting and sharing some rice wine the chef had been holding back for when the arrow was finally retrieved. Mulan _tried _to go back to her tent, as she hadn't slept the night before and was feeling dead on her feet, but the men would not allow it.

"Hold ya horses, Ping," growled Yao, grabbing Mulan by the back of her robe. "It was you who got the arrow, so ya can't go just yet. Not without having a celebratory drink."

"Ah, no... I can't," she declined as politely as she could without seeming too unmanly. "I'm... uh, pretty tired, and... uhhh... I never could hold my drink... after this _one time, heh! heh!... _So_._.. you know, I'll just be- oof!" Before she could protest any further, Yao had shoved the end of the rice wine bottle in her mouth and tipped it upwards, forcing Mulan to have a drink whether she liked it or not.

"For he's a jolly good fellow!" Ling and Chien-Po cheered along with Yao, as Mulan pulled the bottle from her mouth spluttering and gagging.

"Bleh!" she coughed, holding the bottle at an arms length as she rubbed her mouth furiously. "Really guys... I'm fine," she pleaded. "It's been a long day, I just have to get some sleep."

"Aaaaw you're no fun!" Yao snapped angrily, but without the murderous intent he'd previously borne. As soon as she could, Mulan stole away from her new-found comrades and headed towards her tent. However, along the way she happened to pass the Captain engaged in a frosty game of Xiangqi with Chi Fu outside the former's tent – the stakes of which seemed to be a scroll Chi Fu was very keen to have sent to the Emperor.

She paused by the board without realizing; as a girl she had never been allowed to play Xiangqi by herself against men from her village, even though she knew well enough from being taught at home by her father; even though he let her win, she could never beat earnestly. So when she passed by a game in progress she could never resist stopping and watching the state of play for just a few turns, as she was unable to ever satisfy her desire to play it seriously herself.

Judging by the expressions of the men it appeared to be Shang's turn to move, because he was in careful consideration and barely even noticed Mulan was there. Chi Fu looked at her disdainfully, but didn't scold her for fear of disrupting Shang and giving him anything he could use to challenge him with – Chi Fu was certain that he had the Captain cornered now, and that his scroll would be in the hands of the Emperor by sundown tomorrow.

That was, however, until Mulan reached out and pointed to one of Shang's pieces. Her finger hovered over it for a moment, and Shang slowly turned his confused stare up to her in question of exactly _what the hell_ she thought she was doing.

Her finger drifted across the squares and eventually pointed at a space for the piece to move to.

"This... would... work, I think..." she mumbled drowsily, practically asleep on her feet, and then withdrew her hand again thoughtfully, as if she'd not noticed this was not her game at all.

Once he got part the initial offence of her incredibly presumptive act of butting into this game, Shang noticed that the move Mulan had pointed out _would _turn the game around; how had she seen that when he had not? Not to mention, it was hardly the strategy of a novice... how could this even _be _Ping, he wondered.

He was was about to turn and ask Mulan exactly why she'd spent so long pretending to be an absolute incompetent, when she was in fact very clever, when he saw that she was already gone. Barely able to keep putting her feet in front of each other, after possibly the greatest day of her entire life, Mulan trudged back to her tent, where she was greeted by a fanfare of rattling crockery and excited chirping.

"Hey hey hey! Here's my star!" Mushu cheered, drumming on an upturned bowl with a pair of chopsticks. "What did I tell you, huh? Huh? Never doubted you for a _second_, girl. I always knew you had it in you!"

Mulan struggled out of her training clothes and almost fell down onto her sleeping mat. She reached out sleepily to pat Mushu on the head.

"Thanks... Mush-" she mumbled, not even finishing her Guardian's name before she fell fast asleep, a sigh of relief that had been building up for weeks escaping her lips.

* * *

UGH THE THINGS I DO FOR THE LOVE OF PEOPLE I MET ON THE INTERNET.

Call me ;-)


	5. Rabbit

Welcome ladles and jellyspoons, to chapter five of this, my Moolan story. I hope you are enjoying it, even if you are a sneaky Miss La who yells at me to write and post but never gives me any feedback.

Changing the chapter titles because I hate naming chapters. UGH. Now are named after the Chinese Zodiac so go figure.

* * *

"Whooaaampph!" Mulan screamed as her tent collapsed down on top of her, waking her with a somewhat ruder start than she was accustomed to, which, considering Mushu woke her up most days, was saying a lot.

"Rise and shine, sleepin' beauty!" a growl from outside taunted. "You don't want the Captain to miss his _star pupil _do you?" It was too early in the morning for Yao in any form, but with a groan Mulan told herself it could be worse. _Somehow._

"I brought you some breakfast," Chien-Po said warmly, also apparently part of the early morning brigade, "...but I... ate most of it on the way over."

Struggling into her uniform within the folds of her collapsed tent, Mulan waited for the final member of the group to speak; she _knew _he was there, after all.

"..._Yeah_, Ping!" Ling added vacuously, simply wanting to contribute something to the situation but lacking anything proper to say. By then Mulan had managed to crawl out of the mess of cloth and bamboo poles and tied up her hair – she didn't want to risk looking too feminine by having it down for long around other men.

"Did you guys _really_ have to pull down my tent?" she questioned weakly as she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.

"It was practically fallin' down anyways," Yao pointed out. "I barely touched it."

"_Punch him!_" shot the voice of Mushu from below her collar into Mulan's ear, his forked tongue just flicking against her skin as he hissed. "Don't stand for that! Establish your dominance over him!!"

"But I..." Mulan whispered out of the corner of her mouth.

"No excuses! He's gonna think you're a pushover if you let him get away with this!" the dragon insisted fiercely. "So help me, Mulan I'll set fire to your top-knot if you chicken out now."

"Waah!" Mulan yelped in alarm, and then without thinking further on it threw a wild punch at Yao, hitting him right in the black eye.

"Take that shorty!" Mushu whooped in his imitation of Mulan's voice – never one to catch on to this trick yet, Yao scowled at her and cracked his knuckles.

"Oh so that's how you're gunna be," he snarled, pushing Mulan back and then swinging a haymaker at her with one of his bulky, stump-like arms. She jumped his arm as it flew past and it tripped up Ling instead, who fell backwards into Chien-Po, bounced off him, and came flying back towards Mulan.

"What was that for!" the thinner man screamed at them both, and Mulan had to evade a punch from him heading toward Yao that would've passed straight through her.

"Don't hit ME ya buckethead!" roared Yao as Ling hit him in the other eye. "Ping's the one who started it!" Seeming to realize this, it was once again time for Mulan to face off against the two men with the occasional interference of Chien-Po and _all_ _because of Mushu's rotten advice_.

"Take'em down, Mulan!" said dragon urged from hidden away. "You're a new man now! Well... I mean..."

"Waaaah!" she yelled as both men came for her at the same time, and sort of instinctively she managed to deflect both punches, just like the Captain had taught them. She realized that sparring with these two would be far easier after trying to go against Li Shang one-on-one, so Mulan decided to think of this as a training exercise rather than a proper fight.

Both Ling and Yao took time to recover from their missed punches, but Mulan wasn't without worry because Chien-Po's large sausage-hands had come out behind her in an attempt to stop the brawling; she ducked and jumped away from his grasp, rolling into her landing and hopping back up to her feet just to the side of Yao.

He was a short and stocky man, with broad and chunky shoulders but small legs; Mulan knew that here too she had to think of another way to win when she couldn't match people for strength. Alternatively, she had to think of a way in which she _could _match him and target that, and _her_ lower body strength was easily a match for Yao's tiny legs.

So she dropped to the ground and swept out her leg in a low-kick, aiming to knock the man's legs out from underneath him, and then thought ahead to Ling, who would be coming for her next. Ling was tall and wiry, so she obviously couldn't use the same techniques as with Yao; however, he was light and not very muscular: tall objects were always more likely to topple, she thought to herself with a half-smile.

She stood up with the false appearance of not expecting Ling's attack, and then easily deflected his swipe and stepped into his space, putting her foot firmly behind his and pushing him backwards. His balance thrown off and his footing trapped, Ling windmilled helplessly and crashed to the ground, while Mulan was already thinking ahead to the next attack.

That's all it was – just thinking ahead. She knew these guys well enough to understand how they fought, and _they_ never thought she'd ever try to fight back seriously, so now that she wasusing her head she could best them.

Shang was on his way to the first drill of the day when he noticed the pile of white linen where Ping's tent used to stand, and Ping himself standing not far from it currently fighting the three men who seemed to follow him everywhere these days.

It was not the first time he had noticed Ping getting into squabbles – hell, the first time he ever saw Ping it was at the bottom of a camp-wide brawl, but this was the first time seeing the boy actually retaliating. Usually he would just try to escape and run, but this time he was countering the other men's attacks as well as evading.

Shang watched as Mulan parried attacks from Yao and Ling, then side-steped Ling and walked straight past him as he came around quickly for another hit, placing herself directly between the two. She appeared to either be waiting for something or didn't know what to do, because she stopped in the middle of them, which was when she noticed Shang watching them a little way off.

Startled for only a second to discover the Captain observing them, Mulan didn't miss her cue and – as she had been planning – when Yao and Ling both jumped with the intention of bringing her down from both sides, she leapt out of the way so fast that they ran straight into each other head first, knocking themselves with the thickness of their own skulls.

As she stood up and dusted herself down, she chanced a look over in the Captain's direction, and noticed his cold expression, with his arms crossed over his chest; he didn't exactly look impressed like she'd thought or hoped he would.

"Perhaps you could refrain from knocking out my men before the day has even started, Ping!" he called out, and she grinned sheepishly; Shang beckoned her over with a frown, killing her smile straight off, and with a little more worry she crossed the camp toward him.

"Um, yes sir?" she said meekly, hoping that he was not going to scold her too badly for winning the first fight of her life.

"You're to come with me to fetch pails of water now," he stated frostily. "Those men will need it to wake up again." Mulan looked relieved, but then became slightly less so when she realized this would mean going to the lake and back alone with Shang, which meant even more opportunities for him to lecture her.

"Oh, okay then," she murmured sourly, and silently followed him with a bamboo staff from which two wooden buckets hung on each end.

"So tell me, Fa Ping," Shang remarked pseudo-casually as they left the camp and headed out towards the lake – really he'd been waiting for a chance to speak with her alone. "Exactly what part of my orders to go home transformed you into a competent soldier, or was it entirely to spite me?"

"Ummmm..." Mulan made sure that she was a good few paces behind Shang at all times, as he was her Captain and it was the due respect, but it also meant that he had no chance of noticing her pleasure at the backhanded compliment hidden beneath his sarcasm either. "I just realized a few things, that's all."

"Things?" Shang probed, rather curious as to the secret of her success.

"Well you said yourself I cannot win with strength, sir," she explained, "so instead I have to win with my head."

"You cannot get _all _of your opponents to headbutt each other unconscious, you know." he said acerbically.

"No not _literally_," Mulan replied, "I meant I have to _think _to get ahead."

"So you imply that the rest of us do not think?" he taunted, throwing a sharp look over his shoulder at her.

"Not _you_ sir!" she burst, "I mean... well, I mean not that no one thinks... No, wait," she babbled, stopped and then reorganized her thoughts. "I just mean that I have to outwit a problem, not beat it with raw power."

"Surely a man could do both?" Shang questioned, the reference to _himself_ poorly disguised.

"Well then I just have to think twice as far ahead as him," Mulan answered with a shrug, completely missing the allusion he had made. As much as it worried him to admit it, after she had bested not only Chi Fu but he himself in that game of Xiangqi, Shang believed that perhaps she might actually be able to do that. Then he convinced himself the kid just got lucky.

Reaching their destination, they began to fill the pails of water. It was as Mulan fitted the second of her buckets back onto the carrying staffs by the banks of the lake that Shang felt something in the air suddenly, something threatening. He heard a few twigs snap in the trees around them and the rustling of leaves, then a deadly silence – bowstrings made no sound being drawn, he knew.

"Ping get down!" he bellowed as the archer released his arrow, which cut through the shrubbery and narrowly missed Mulan, who Shang had shoved out of the way at the last second, also avoiding the shot himself and letting it pound harmlessly into a tree behind them.

"Waaaah!" shrieked Mulan as she lost her balance and began to topple backwards, and in an effort to regain her footing swung out her arms; staff in hand, buckets and all. She just about managed to get her footing when the end of the pole connected with something solid and she used the force to right herself, but unfortunately for her that 'solid thing' happened to be her Captain, who now – after being unceremoniously slammed in the chest with a full bucket – was knocked sideways and missed his footing on the bank of the lake.

Which, of course, sent him tumbling into it with a large splash.

Mulan looked at the water where Shang had fallen in, then looked quickly at the arrow in the tree, and then looked in the direction it had come from to find herself staring straight back at a pair of yellow eyes, the tip of a bow just visible through the undergrowth.

"Uh-oh," she said dumbly, and stood like a rabbit caught in the fireworks watching the middle of the bow rise into view with a new arrow loaded, paralysed with fright. Just when she thought that was it for her and the archer was just about to release, Mulan's body whipped down to the ground, catching the bank hard with her stomach. The archer hadn't the time to keep up with her violent movement, not least because Mulan hadn't expected it either, and accidentally fired into the trees behind her again.

With a hand firmly on her ankle, Shang pulled Mulan down to the ground into safety, and then with another movement tossed her behind him into the lake, which was equal parts for her safety and because _she'd_ thrown him in first.

Vaulting out of the water Shang dashed into the undergrowth and sprinted towards the archer, weaving between the trees to prevent any more clear shots opening up for the man, who realized his chance was up and melted away into the forest faster than Shang could track him, for which the Captain cursed loudly. Back where they had stopped, a now soggy Mulan awaited his return despairingly.

"Have I taught you _nothing_?!" Shang snapped as he stormed back into sight. "It is incredibly difficult to _stare out _an arrow, Ping," he scolded savagely. "If it hadn't been for me you would have been dead twice over now!"

"More times than that sir," was the morose reply she had for him, and Shang remembered the incident in the climbing exercise as well with this.

"Yes. Exactly," he said stiffly. "You cannot rely on me to save your life every time you are faced with real danger outside of training."

"No sir." She sat on the edge of the lake staring blankly at the rippling water.

"You have done plenty of exercises avoiding archers already."

"I know, sir."

"So you cannot freeze up when it actually counts."

"Sorry, sir."

"Ping would you _look _at me when I speak to you!" he shouted suddenly, and Mulan turned as she had been ordered; Shang sighed heavily: the look on her face was not encouraging. Crushed spirits performed much worse under stress and training, as he had so obviously noted, and she had just started making progress. "Well you're alive now," he said resignedly.

"I really am sorry, sir," she mumbled – just when she thought things were going well she had to mess them up again.

"Don't apologise, just don't make the same mistake again." Shang wrung the water out of his hair and it ran unpleasantly down his neck. "Did you _really _have to throw me into the water?" he griped suddenly, as if the previous exchange had not passed at all.

"What? I didn't..." Mulan protested, until she ran back over events and realized that she sort of had.

"Whether you improve or not, Fa Ping, you still seem to be set on humiliating me at every opportunity," he sighed. He didn't mention it then, but the moment with the Xiangqi the previous night was far more humiliating than this.

"Um, about the Huns, sir," Mulan pleaded, but he held up a hand to silence her.

"They will take opportunities as they see them. We just happened to walk into one. They are not advancing on the camp, and although somewhat wet, we are both alive and unharmed. That is the only thing that matters."

Mulan sighed into her hands; she had been so close to death again and had done _nothing_, and had to be saved by the Captain instead as usual. How was she supposed to battle the Huns for real if she couldn't even protect her own life?

"Get up, soldier," Shang commanded from behind her, sensing that she was on the verge of falling into an entirely unhelpful depression. "You'll note that you are late for my morning inspection, conscript Fa, and as a penalty will be running fifty laps of the camp after training today."

"What?!" Mulan cried, turning around onto her knees and gaping at him in outrage. "How can I be late? _You're _not even there!" Shang merely returned her look and raised his eyebrows a little, daring her to challenge him.

"Uh... hmph. Understood," she groaned, and with a heavy heart and even heavier waterlogged clothes got to her feet. They re-filled the pails of water and began the journey back into camp.

"Oh," Shang said in passing as they began to walk between the tents of the men on the return. "While you are doing those laps, soldier..." Mulan gave him a sidelong glance. "Keep an eye out for anything suspicious."

"Um, sir?" She couldn't believe that Captain Li might _actually _be telling her to keep a watch out for Huns around the camp. There was _no way._

"You and Chi Fu are the only ones who know of the guerillas," he explained in a hushed tone. "I want it to stay that way. However, I cannot be watching all the time. Report anything you see directly to me."

"But Captain," she argued, "I can't even dodge an arrow that I _know_ is coming!"

"Then you'll learn or you'll die," he replied barbarically, but with a hint of amusement in his eyes. "It seems that you adapt best in extreme situations, Ping. Wouldn't you agree?"

"I... I... suppose..." she mumbled worriedly, not entirely sure that being taken into the Captain's confidence like this was going to be good for her.

"I have faith in you," Shang said warmly, and Mulan _almost _smiled. Until he added under his breath, "...I _think_."

By the time they had returned to the men, Yao and Ling had woken up anyway, and Mulan saw no need for the water in the first place. However, the Captain had other ideas.

"Seeing as Ping is already wet," he announced to the men, "because he foolishly took a tumble into the lake." There was a chuckle of laughter amongst the men, but no one dared to point out that the Captain himself had also obviously been in the water as well. "He will participate first in this exercise. Stand up straight, soldier," he commanded, and Mulan shot to attention bolt upright.

Shang walked up to her and balanced one of the buckets on her head, as they had in the mountain exercise of before. He handed her one of the staffs, and then pointed to a bag of stones a little way off.

"Begin," he commanded, and then as the men rambled over to the spot the Captain whispered to her, "ready to think your way out of this one?" and went to join the men.

Mulan panicked for a few moments and tried to think of a strategy, but all she could picture was her blank mind earlier as that Hun had pointed his bow at her. She saw the first stone being thrown and flinched, preparing herself for an unpleasant pain, unable to even move much with this bucket on her head.

However, she was somehow spared, because the thrower had actually missed her and the stone flew harmlessly past her shoulder. She sighed in relief, but the next stone _did _make contact, and she hissed as it hit her in the ribs and bounced off.

"What's the matter?" someone taunted. "Given up already?" Another rock came flying towards her, and Mulan bit her lip and moved the staff in an attempt to block it, and _somehow_ she pulled it off, deflecting the pebble and sending it flying off in another direction. The next one came up fast, but instead of panic-moving she watched it carefully, and realized that it was unlikely to hit her, but another coming one was, so she ignored the second and moved to hit the third.

While she couldn't hit all of them by any means, she actually managed to progress aiming only to deflect the ones that were sure to hit her directly – even ones that just skimmed her she didn't bother to stop unless she had the time, and with this technique she managed to last for a good few minutes without tipping the bucket or taking any serious hits.

Shang watched her being both impressed and irritated, for just as she said she would Mulan had worked out a way to survive by thinking around the problem, even when he'd been _sure _she couldn't. With this in mind he subtly picked up a single stone himself, and then threw it carefully towards his target.

Mulan saw the Captain join in to toss a rock at her, and after her initial panic she saw that it was far too high and she had nothing to worry about. After all, the distance between her and the men gave her a good moment of consideration between when they threw and when the stones hit her, so she paid it no further attention until all of a sudden she heard a loud _clack _as the stone landed right in the centre of her bucket.

Everyone had been aiming for her body, as the bucket was simply meant to be to preserve your balance, so she had forgotten that it was a part of her profile. Shang's throw was by no means gentle, and the whole thing rocked backwards and began to fall. She reached up in a last attempt to grab it, but was a moment too late and the whole pail emptied down her back, soaking her anew.

"A good effort," Shang announced innocently, as if _he _wasn't the one who messed things up for her. "Who would volunteer to be next?"

With an undeniable pout Mulan stomped back towards the group of men, giving Shang a glare that let him know she knew it was him; she wrung some of the water out of the back of her robe with a scowl.

"Take the robe off if it is so unbearable, Fa Ping, do not glare at me," Shang directed, to which Mulan spoke so fast she said about three things at the same time, and suddenly stopped complaining.

Even if it _was _horrible going around all day in a wet robe, Mulan could no sooner take it off than she could eat the moon, and chided herself for even provoking such a dangerous order from the Captain. If anyone even began to so much as _suspect... _no, it didn't bear thinking about. Nothing more had come from it so she would just try to put it behind her.

By the end of the training day she had dried off, and nearly forgot that she was being assigned laps for missing an inspection that firstly Shang had made her miss, and secondly he hadn't even been at himself. Almost forgot, if it hadn't been for his reminding her just as she was about to walk away to get some food in the mess tent.

"Fa Ping," came the Captain's voice sternly, and she winced with the sudden reminder.

"Can't I go eat first?" she turned around and pleaded. "Chien-Po will eat everything otherwise!"

"Then I will have some food held back for you," he replied without pausing. "You can ask the cook for it after you have finished your punishment."

"You didn't even _hold _a morning inspection!" she argued.

"Are you answering back to your Captain?" he said proudly, and Mulan had to hold her tongue; she heaved a heavy sigh and slowly dragged herself toward the edge of camp.

"On second thoughts," Shang said suddenly, and she jumped around hopefully. "You can fetch the food from me. That way," he said quietly, taking a few steps closer to Mulan, "you can report anything you've seen." The implication was clear, so Mulan just nodded before speeding up her walk into a jog away from him. This wasn't even really a punishment, she thought to herself as she started the first of her rounds; Shang had no one else to rely on to guard the camp from the Huns, so he's actually trusted her enough to let her help in this small way. She _thought_. He could just be using her in an interesting experiment to see if thrusting her into potential life or death situations improved training.

She was thankful, though, that her Captain was actually such a good man. He'd even given _her _a second chance, and now he trusted her enough to keep watch when only earlier that day she'd nearly been killed. She just had to try and stay alive by herselfnow, and she'd be well on the way to being a soldier.

Luckily enough, there wasn't so much as a leaf out of place in the whole camp or the surrounding terrain all evening, and Mulan's 'patrol' went by without trouble. Her stomach groaning, she finally finished her last lap and headed towards Captain Li's quarters, where he _better _have the food he promised, because she was beginning to get _very_ sick of the Fa Family Soup, not to mention Mushu had been muttering dark things about the benefits of lucky crickets as an ingredient, and the poor thing's nervous chirping was beginning to get very grating.

She stopped by the tent awkwardly; she'd never been in an officer's tent before, she didn't even know if there was some kind of special greeting she was meant to use, or if she should wait for him to invite her, or maybe she wasn't even allowed to _actually _go inside, or...

"Ping? Are you out there?" Shang asked from within before she had a chance to make up her mind, and she jumped with a sound of surprise. "I can see your shadow," he called out, and from within she heard some sounds of a person moving about and cloth rustling. "Enter," he finally commanded, so Mulan timidly stepped inside.

She had no idea what to expect of a Captain's tent, but she was still impressed all the same. Compared to her now-collapsed pile of sheets this was the lap of luxury. It even had _rugs_, and furniture. On a low table covered in maps and other documents was the Xiangqi board he and Chi Fu had been playing on last night. The one she had pointed out Shang's winning move to him on.

Mulan's eyes widened as she realized that she'd actually _done _that; she had been so sleepy that she did it without even thinking and forgot about it afterwards. She then saw what Shang had meant about humiliating him. Having a half-trained soldier like you win your game for you against the Emperor's Consul wasn't a great look.

He must have noticed her looking at it, because there was a challenging edge to his expression she she looked over.

"Do you play or just meddle?" he questioned, and Mulan took a sudden passionate interest in the toes of her boots.

"Sorry about that, sir," she said, "I was very tired."

Shang rolled his eyes; now Ping was _tired _and managed to outsmart him. He tried not to think about it too much and instead pointed to a bowl covered with a scrap of cloth on a side-table near the entrance.

"Spared from Chien-Po for you, as promised," he said with a smirk, and without a second to wait Mulan pounced on the bowl and began eagerly eat in huge mouthfuls; obviously she'd worked up an appetite.

"Thank you sir," she said at last, once the bowl had been quickly emptied. Her eyes suddenly clouded with doubt. "You didn't want me to leave to eat, did you?" she asked worriedly. "I was really hun-"

"You haven't reported to me yet," he replied quietly, not seeming bothered by whether she'd eaten at all, let alone where.

"Oh, well, uh, nothing to report, sir!" she said brightly. "I didn't see a thing."

"No suspicious shadows?" he questioned. After all, 'nothing' to a trained and untrained could vary greatly.

"Nope."

"No unusual movement of branches?"

"No sir."

"No-" Mulan dared to cut him off.

"Really, Captain Li. I didn't see _anything _suspicious at all," she insisted, and then bounced on the balls of her feet awkwardly in the silence that followed; Shang was a little surprised that she'd dared to interrupt him. "Well, that's that so I guess I should go now then?" she suggested after the discomfort had become too great for even her to bear. She turned around and was about to step out.

"Hold up," Shang spoke at last, and Mulan froze. She chanced to look back at him over her shoulder, and saw that he had a look in his eye that she'd certainly not seen when he was in training before; it made him look younger, if anything, as it had a spark of what she could only call playfulness in it.

"If you've not in a hurry, Ping," he began to say, rubbing his hand along his chin as if he were thinking carefully on his next words, and then he made a slight gesture towards the Xiangqi board. "Perhaps you'd care for a game?"

* * *

Mushu gets _all _the funny lines, man. Shang gets a few too, but his humour is more smarmy.

Review!


	6. Horse

Heeeey all! So I know I missed the Friday update, I had a pretty big weekend and just didn't have the right moment to get down and sort this out, so I had to leave off until now. Not to worry though, normal schedule resumes. Thanks for your paitence.

* * *

They sat perfectly still on either side of the low table, focusing intensely on the board between them, not a word passing between moves.

'Captain' Li Shang didn't want to think that Mulan would be able to beat him in a proper game of Xiangqi – she'd just got lucky last time seeing the board with fresh eyes – but the cautious part of his mind had warned him not to take any chances, so he had not dared to underestimate her. He _had _to win this not only to redeem his almost-loss to Chi Fu the night before, but to prove to himself that he could, and that there wasn't a chance that _Fa Ping_ of all people was smarter than him. Not Fa Ping who fell out of trees and couldn't put up a tent straight; Shang simply couldn't allow it.

She played well, though, very well for just a teenager, and the Captain had to reach to the very limits of his ability to keep the upper hand. He _could_ win, though, and had so far always kept the stronger position, although a single mistake could reverse that entirely, and he wasn't planning to spare her that opportunity.

It was coming up for two hours when it occurred to them in their own ways that they'd not actually exchanged a single word since the game began – they'd barely even made eye contact, and the strangeness of spending several hours sitting in the tent of her commanding officer in complete silence dawned on Mulan. She flicked her eyes up towards Shang, but he was still staring down at the board furrowing his brow. She dared to let her gaze linger, and _properly _observed the man and his features in detail for the first time.

She'd always thought of him as having an angry-looking face, but she amended herself, deciding that he just looked a bit serious, and only angry when he _was_ angry and yelling at the men.

She thought back to the girls from home: the ones she had gone with to the matchmaker, specifically. Being of the same age she had always been in some kind of unwilling competition with them, and most of the time she had lost, and because of that she had always been treated by them as lesser being. She smirked to herself to think of their faces if they knew that Fa Mulan was sitting unchaperoned in the living quarters of a man like Shang, playing a game of Xiangqi with him late at night. Oh they would eat their hearts out: a Captain, the son of a General, from a prestigious family, strong, intelligent, handsome...

She chewed on her lip uncomfortably at the direction of her thoughts. She wasn't _blind_ or anything, she could see him well enough and was simply stating the truth that he was a handsome man. It had nothing to do with how _she _felt about him, she was simply observing the obvious. Any fool would know that a man like Li Shang would be the dream of any girl back home.

_Even to her?_ She was one of the girls too, even if she was pretending not to be for the moment. Would Li Shang be _her _perfect husband, she wondered.

For a while this made Mulan frown, but then she started grinning at the thought. She saw him simply as her Commander, to try and imagine anything else just seemed bizarre. Shang bringing her gifts, calling at her house and speaking words of love to her? She'd just be waiting for him to give her an order!

"Is something funny, Ping?" the man himself said suddenly, breaking their two-hour long silence with a rather cutting look. He thought that she was smirking at _him_.

"Oh no sir," she replied hurriedly. "I wasn't... not at _you_, sir. I just thought of something that made me smile." Shang raised his eyebrows in an almost characteristic 'Say what, Ping?' movement.

"What would that be then?" he pried, and Mulan's soft smile dropped from her face completely. She could hardly say she had been thinking of the Captain courting her! Not unless she wanted to give herself away or give him some very funny ideas about 'Ping'.

"Oh... it... uh... I..." she stuttered, and then in her panic saw the board before her and the piece he had moved. She'd already planned a tactic against hit so quickly grabbed one of her pieces and slammed it into place. "There! Heh! Heh! How's that?!" she hooted as she slapped the counter down and _hoped _that he wouldn't bring the question back again.

Thankfully Shang did not – merely stared at her for a few moments like he couldn't believe she had really shouted that – and she didn't chance to do so much as breathe too loud after that exchange lest she invite any more awkward conversation. She wondered if it hadn't been such a good idea to agree to this game at all, but she'd so wanted to play a fair game by herself that she couldn't resist his unexpected offer.

Captain Li was good, slightly better than her actually, but she believed that she could definitely beat him if he just gave her the right opportunities. Only, he hadn't so far, and he was slowly but surely pinning her down, much to her own displeasure.

In her defence this _was_ the first game she'd ever played with someone other than her father, who was leagues above even Shang. Although she didn't really mind losing, she would still make it as damn hard as possible for him to win anyway.

Shang noticed the switch Mulan made from an offensive strategy to a defensive one, and his eyes lit up with the promise of victory. It wasn't much longer before he finally captured the general and ended the game, after which he sat back with a tiny sigh of relief and an unguarded smile of pride.

"Did your father teach you?" he asked before either of them had thought to move on.

"Yes," she answered. "He would let me win, but I could never beat him if he played seriously."

"Well you play a good game," he remarked warmly. "I compliment his teaching methods."

"Thank you, sir," she replied, bowing her head to him. "It must be late," she observed as she stood up and noticed the thick darkness outside. "So, hh, goodnight, then." She waved, and took a few steps towards the exit.

"Wait," Shang said suddenly, and she paused obediently with a sense of deja vu. Shang considered that with this kind of cover Huns could be crawling around under their very noses and they wouldn't be any the wiser until someone got their throat cut; the enemy might not be so bold as to go into the men's tents to attack, but a young man like Ping wandering around blindly in the dark would be far too easy a target, in his worried eyes.

"Sir?" Mulan questioned, turning around on her heels and trying to read the Captain's expression.

"Just... be careful," Shang sighed in the end; what else could he do? She hadn't reported any suspicious signs from her patrols and he could hardly entreat her to sleep _here _could he? It would be most improper for an officer to share his quarters with a lowly recruit. Not to mention it might make people talk, after all, Ping was delicately featured and small, so it would be easy for the men to suggest that their Captain might have underlying... _perverse_ motivations.

Shang was certainly not inclined _that way _toward Ping, or anyone else in the camp for that matter, and he'd like it to stay that way. However it was no secret that Chi Fu would use anything he could to try and subvert his command, and it wouldn't be a stoop to the man at all to try and throw that kind of slander.

"I'll be careful, sir," Mulan replied, and then finally stepped out. The air was cold and the winds had picked up, so she huddled her arms around herself and set off briskly. She remembered that her tent was still only two-dimensional after her scuffle with Yao at daybreak, and sighed heavily. She'd just have to try and put the thing up in the dark as best she could, and began to stumble back in the poor light.

"HEY! And where have YOU been, young lady?!" Mushu yelped after Mulan nearly put her foot on him upon discovering the remains of her tent.

"Shhhh Mushu! Don't go screaming things like _that_!" she hissed, stooping down to feel through the folds of her tent material for the bamboo poles in it hurriedly. "What do you mean anyway?" she queried, as she grabbed hold of the main supports that held the linen up and pulled them up off the ground.

"What do you mean 'what do I mean'?!" the dragon exclaimed. "It's past midnight and you've been gone for _hours_! I thought you'd been made into a pin-cushion by a passing Hun or something!" Mulan winced at the memory of the time when that almost happened to her for real.

"I was with Captain Li," she answered innocently, and then the area around them lit up in a sudden flash of orange as Mushu blew out a shock of flames, evidently trying to indicate his discontent.

"Doing _what _with the Captain?" he demanded. "Ooooh I can see the guilt in your eyes, you know! It's not proper for-"

"Why isn't it proper?" she countered before he had a chance to finish his 'for a young lady like you' line. "I'm meant to be a boy, aren't I? Well, that's what everyone thinks I am after all. He's just my Captain."

"Well the _ancestors _know what you're up to," Mushu grumbled, "and they ain't gonna be happy about this."

"He asked if I wanted to play Xiangqi and I said yes," she said obstinately. She'd come to the army hoping to escape all of these 'proper' expectations people had of her as girl, but they seemed to want to chase her everywhere, even as spirits. "That's all it was."

"Girl, you do realize that he's not as stupid as he looks?" Mushu said cattily, and before Mulan could protest that Shang did _not _look stupid he'd carried on. "You're hardly the manliest looking fake-man out there. You sit there making eyes at him all night and he's gonna get suspicious sooner or later."

"I wasn't making eyes at him," she rushed. "I wouldn't... I don't..."

"Oh yeah? I'm sure seen you doing it before," he taunted, darting up her arm to perch on her like a proverbial devil on her shoulder.

"I'm just _looking _at him," she insisted as she concentrated on getting the tent back upright. "He's my Captain I _have_ to look at him when he's speaking to me."

"You have to look at his butt when he's speaking to you?" Mushu taunted, and the next moment found himself flying through the air heading very quickly towards the ground as Mulan threw him violently off her shoulder, making a distressed sound of shock and feeling her face burn in embarrassment.

"Jeesh! What was that for?" her dragon berated as he picked himself back up. "I was just... Oh never mind. Either way, Mulan spending special private time with Captain no-shirt is just a little bit too risky for us."

"_Fine_," Mulan admitted, letting herself be cowed because Mushu _did _have a point. Shang had no reason to think she was a girl, but not spending time with him like that by themselves would just make it less likely he'd ever _get _a reason. Which was a shame, really, because she'd really enjoyed the evening; excluding this part of having to struggle to get back here and put this tent up in the dark.

She did manage to erect the dammed shelter eventually, and crawled inside and rolled herself up in her blanket, wriggling out of her uniform as she went. They certainly did make clothes more comfortable for men; she almost didn't want to go back to wearing tight, restricting ornamental dresses when this was over. _If _this was ever over.

After all, she'd been hoping that she could just serve the time she'd been conscripted for, paying her family's duty to China, and then return home and apologise to her father. Without anyone here finding out that she was a girl. Also without dying.

The next few days that made up the remainder of the week passed fairly uneventfully. She didn't get into any fights with Yao or Ling, and Chien-Po even showed her how he made the special seasoning sauce that he put in the cook's food to take away the taste of his cooking.

Training was still hard, but she no longer collapsed in the middle of it, because now that she _knew _her strengths she could play to them. If she knew something was going to be particularly hard for her, she found a way to ease the strain even if it was only slightly and paced herself regardless of any of the other men.

For example, if they were doing exercises in staff skills where they smashed sturdy clay pots, because she knew that she wouldn't be strong enough to break them just any-which-way with her own strength she aimed doubly hard to strike them only at their weakest points, so if that didn't break them it would crack them at least and then the ground did the rest for her.

She wasn't the _top _of the class or anything, but she certainly wasn't the bottom anymore, and she'd attained somewhat of a special student status ever since the night she retrieved Captain Li's arrow. She didn't think he favoured her or anything, but she noticed that they did seem to have a slightly more personalised relationship than most of the other men.

Although, she did think that sometimes Shang simply used that as an excuse to work her harder if he knew she was good at something. While she was proud of the fact that he acknowledged her ability and believed in her potential as a real soldier, she did sometimes wish back for the days when he would take pity on her.

This was one of those times.

"But sir!" she yelled, her outrage far past the point of adhering to proper respect for her superior. "FIVE?!"

"I have seen you last against three comfortably," Shang remarked, his expression uninterested and blank as he listlessly argued the issue; he shouldn't have to, because his orders ought to have been absolute, but Fa Ping was another case entirely.

"How am I expected to fight against _five _other men?" she protested. "This isn't fair!"

"War isn't fair, Ping. There have been plenty of battles where armies are outnumbered five to one. And won."

"But-"

"No buts."

"Captain Li!" Mulan refused to give up on this. Asking one pair of sparring partners to work together to fight her was fair enough considering she'd been fighting Yao and Ling together since she got here. She was getting used to dealing with two or three at a time, but _five _was simply outrageous. She'd never make it out alive!

Shang sighed heavily and uncrossed his arms.

"Very well," he said bitterly. "If you are to be so _obstinate_, then you can spar against just one."

Mulan broke out into a smile and graciously bowed to Shang. "Thank you so much, sir," she gushed.

"Over here, then," ordered Shang, gesturing with a turn of his head to the painted circle on the ground that marked the ring for one-on-one competitive matches.

"...buh." Mulan stood dumbly with her mouth hanging open. "Y-y-y-you don't mean _you're _the 'just one'?" she stuttered, and Shang nodded.

"You know five isn't really so many people," said Mulan. "Come on, fellahs, let me have it!" She pounded her fists against her chest and faced the men who'd been selected to go against her, but not one of them moved so much as a muscle.

"No, no, Ping. You insisted," Shang said with a smirk that although she couldn't _see_, Mulan could _feel_. Remorsefully she turned around and faced the Captain, who had stepped into the ring and stood waiting for her.

"Do I ha-"

"Yes," he cut in. "That's an _order_."

Mulan sighed, realizing that her cards had come up and she was just going to have to accept it; she walked over to Shang with the air of someone approaching their own death, and with good reason too. If Shang had wanted to pit her against so many men then he obviously wanted to kill her, and because she had complained about being mobbed he had instead offered to just kill him with her own hands, meaning that he was not going to be holding back against her.

This was rightly judged, as she had barely set foot inside the chalk circle that marked their parameters of combat before he came at her, and Mulan only just managed to duck his arm, leaping underneath and running right past him, putting a slightly safer distance back between them to try and collect herself.

However there was no time to rest, as he turned around and squared up, moving into an offensive fighting stance and taking a few quick steps closer to her. Mulan floundered, too overwhelmed and unsettled to think straight, and she paid for her hesitations when Shang threw a hard punch straight at her face, stopping with his knuckles literally touching the tip of her nose. Mulan hadn't even thought of defending, and Shang's expression reflected his irritation with that.

"Next time I won't stop," he warned her coldly, and it was then that Mulan managed to get to grips with herself. This was just the mean Captain Li; who had tried to send her home, thinking she was useless. Finally she could prove to him once and for all that she deserved to be here, that she _was _cut out for war. She just had to beat him at his own game, and just like the game of Xiangqi even though she might not win in the end against him, but she could put up a damn hard fight going down.

Quickly she assessed him as he waited to see if she was going to attack: Li Shang, rank Captain: rarely seen with his robe on. From this it was evident that he had impressive upper body strength, and his shoulders and arms were a brutal force to reckon with. She would have to avoid upper body attacks at all costs, both receiving and giving, because she didn't have the strength to hurt him if she went for the torso anyway.

He also had long legs for a man, and his balance was next to none, it would be hard to throw or trip him even with low-kicks. That meant that his only real spot of vulnerability, his _only combative_ weak point was... well, his face. They didn't call him Pretty Boy for nothing, and Mulan was sure that he'd try to protect that area more than anywhere else. He'd hardly look as good with a broken nose. Not that she thought he looked good or anything.

Not to mention that a good hard knock to the head really jangled the brain and even a man like him would get unsteady after that. All she needed to do was find an opening, then, to land a hit.

She knew that it needed to be a _good_ hit, though, so a punch from _her _weak arms wouldn't do much; however, she remembered from the Captain's training himself that the legs were three times stronger than the arms, and _her _lower body strength wasn't half bad for a girl of her age, not to mention better suited to raising her legs than a man's.

How much simpler could it be? She had to high-kick him.

Seeing that she wasn't going to strike him, Shang came forward with another attack, hoping that she had caught up and would defend because he _meant _it when he said he wouldn't stop again and he'd rather not break the boy's nose. Mulan parried flawlessly and ducked under his arm, side-stepping as she went so that she faced his back; although, not for long, as Shang readjusted his footing and spun around for a powerful backwards strike with his elbow

However his range wasn't quite close enough, as Mulan backstepped away from him easily, almost skipping across the ground without even breaking her stance to avoid him. Shang grit his teeth, wondering why she was simply dodging and not attacking. He wondered if perhaps she was just afraid to strike him, or maybe she was waiting for a good enough opening, even though she had moved right into his blind spot first time off. He didn't doubt for a minute that she had a plan of some kind, so he didn't let his guard down.

Shang struck out again, this time only feinting with his right hand and following behind with his left for a body hit, but Mulan had second guessed him and guarded her stomach instead of her face, tipping her head out of the way of the clumsy feint and taking the force of the actual punch with her hands. She was thrown backwards a little, but kept her balance and moved fast to deflect the next attack away from her upper body, using her forearm to push Shang's away and then grabbing onto his wrist, raising it up high with her own arm.

She quickly span under the arm so they were shoulder to shoulder, trying to twist Shang's arm around with her movements in an attempt to lock it, but he was too strong and pulled free easily. All of_ his _joints were wrapped in a good thick layer of muscle, making him a much tougher opponent to put into binds than, say, Ling.

She didn't panic, though, and simply continued to dodge or deflect all of the Captain's attacks one after the other, using the size of his body in comparison to hers to cut around him nimbly and find areas where he couldn't strike her without having to move; simply buying time before she had a chance to open up an opportunity for a strike of her own.

Shang became more frustrated as they sparred, because not only would Ping not hit him and because he couldn't land an attack on the boy either. This irritation grew until his movements became faster and more aggressive, but at the same time also less controlled. However Mulan could still keep up with him for speed and her defence was almost flawless, so as the Captain's precision slipped she simply waited for the right moment.

The men around them mostly stopped what they were doing and began to watch the practice fight; it was unlike anything most of them had seen before. Okay it was sort of one-sided, but it was impressive to watch the two partners clashing, the Captain throwing out punch after punch only to be evaded every single time by Ping, who moved with the freedom of flowing water, his expression not even strained.

Suddenly, without any kind of indicator, Mulan struck out at Shang, only to be deflected and pushed away like she had done to the Captain so many times before. Shang took advantage of this change in her movements to go for a move that would take Mulan down in a single hit. He started into a spin and raises his left arm at the elbow, preparing for a horizontal chop that would hopefully send her flying; he kept his arm bent until the last moment he could so that she would not try to judge the distance and evade backwards, and then finally extended as well as throwing all of his momentum and weight into the movement.

However, Mulan did not go back, but _down_, and although he was still up to track with her movements, the force of his own attack threw his arm way out to the side and opened up his whole body for a split second; he now expected to take a hit for his overzealousness.

Mulan rooted herself to the ground, fixing all of her balance onto one leg so that the other was free for the coming kick; she sprung up and used the upward forces to bolster the turning force of her hips as she lashed out, her foot high and fast, aiming right for the Captain's face.

Half of her expected him to block it, but miraculously he did not and she made full contact. Shang was stunned briefly as he felt the blow land against his jaw and the shock ricocheted through his whole head, so before he knew it the energy had transferred and all the power and speed in Mulan's kick was pushing him sideways, and he fell.

More than fell, he almost flew from the fierceness of the kick that had hit him so suddenly. From the head downwards everything was thrust off-balance, which then ripped down through his body and dragged everything along with it. He landed on his back, remembering to break his fall, and simply lay there, looking over at Mulan who stood proudly a little way off. Around them men cheered for her.

Shang brought up a hand to his face and felt his chin with a scowl, the kick had made the immediate area of contact go numb, and he clasped his jaw curiously, pressing his thumb along the skin that was sure to bruise now. She'd been playing him the _whole_ time; had used his sloppiness with anger to make he himself open up for this attack in a way she couldn't have done with force.

He should've known better than to hand it to her on a plate like that. Underneath his hand he smiled, and then dragging his hand down his face as he sat him he met Mulan's eyes.

"A good hit," he said with a challenging grin. "If you think I'll go down _that _easily..."

It was then that he noticed the chalk line of the outside of the ring just beyond his feet; Mulan stood a step behind it with a similarly stunned expression, as she had not planned upon that either, and it was only on the words of the others that she'd realized. She had knocked him out of the ring. She'd won.

"Oh," Shang muttered as he realized he'd lost. "Well, Ping," he sighed, getting to his feet and dusting the dirt off his clothes. "I don't have much choice but to congratulate you, do I?"

He took a couple of steps closer and put his hand on her shoulder, leaning over until his mouth was hovering by her ear.

"Well done," he said softly, his voice too quiet for anyone around to hear so the words passed only between the two of them. "You earned it." He straighted up and walked off, his hand only lingering for a moment on her shoulder.

"Th... thank you, Captain.... S-Shang," Mulan breathed, her lower lip clenched firmly between her teeth as she tried desperately to force down the betraying blush she felt threatening her cheeks.

* * *

Wah-ha! Done at last. I'd been waiting for this scene for a long time too, what with how tough Mulan had it at the beginning of the story.

Enjoy and leave a review if you care to.


	7. Tiger

Okay, I'm going to be honest here. It's late, I'm tired, I'm aching, and I really can't keep my marbles together long enough to properly edit all of this.

I've done the _first_ section up until the lead-in to the lake scene, but I am SO exhausted, so I'd rather just stick to my schedule and properly edit this tomorrow when I'm alive than struggle through it now. This is quite an important chapter, and takes the story into a more mature and darker area as the end draws near (there is only one more chapter set in-movie after this one, then the nearly-finished epilogue), so I hope that you can all stick with it/me through it.

That said, please forgive any mistakes or rubbish you see, but a chapter is a chapter. I wrote this whole thing in about an hour probably, because I got hooked into the action and it just rolled outta me, which was great fun.

Enough babbling now. Story.

EDIT COMPLETED. I LOVE YOU ALL.

* * *

Mulan sighed heavily as she turned the corner and continued to jog down the length of the training camp: Shang had given her laps _again_.

She was sure it had something to do with her beating him in the practice fight earlier that day. Even if he had congratulated her so quietly and sincerely and made her go pinker than a blossoming tree.

"You brought this upon yourself, you know," Mushu remarked smarmily from her shoulder, where he coiled over her collarbone as his back half sat snugly under her collar.

"I wasn't going to lose on purpose!" she protested. "I didn't even think I'd win in the first place, so why _would _I try to lose. I hadn't thought that far ahead."

"You see, that's where your problem lies; you just don't know your own strength anymore!" Mushu said rather proudly. "Beatin' up the Captain like that, you shoulda seen his face."

"I did see his face,"she pointed out. "He was very nice about it."

"Yeah, because he had to be," he replied. "It'd hardly look great if he threw a temper tantrum because a little pipsqueak like you knocked him outta the park. Tell me, if he _wasn't _annoyed why're you running laps again?"

"Well... he..." Mulan mumbled. "Maybe he wants me to keep watch?"

"He didn't _tell_ you to meet up for no special time in his tent afterwards," Mushu retorted. "Girl, he's definitely mad at you."

"He's not!"

"Is so_,"_ the dragon snapped, grinning widely and displaying his sharp teeth. "That doesn't _bother_ you does it?" he jibed. "Not being Captain's favourite?"

"_No_," she mumbled; lying to both her guardian and herself. "Anyway. Maybe he _does _want me to keep a lookout... and... he... assumes I'll go and tell him if I see anything unusual, without being ordered to." She was reaching the far end of the camp. "I mean if I _see_ any Huns I'll just-"

She slowed suddenly as she came up to the far corner, her eyes riveted on the edge of the forest not far away. Speak of the devil indeed.

"Mulan? Mulan? Just what are you... _oh_," Mushu stuttered as he too saw the beady yellow eyes flashing in the afternoon light not more than twenty metres away from them, set in a pale and foreign looking face. The archer had his bow raised and loaded already, and Mushu had barely uttered his last syllable when the arrow came hurtling forwards aimed straight for Mulan's chest.

There was no Captain Shang to save her this time, but thankfully some trace of what had happened by the lake took over and she floored herself just in time. The archer had already loaded again and fired towards the ground no more than seconds later, but Mulan was paying attention and rolled to the side, avoiding that as well. She got under the cover of some bushes and scrambled to her feet manically.

"Captai-!" she began to scream, but then realized that it was still the middle of the day, and if she ran screaming up to Shang that there were Huns right by the border of camp firing on soldiers then _everyone _would know, and Shang had been very clear on that not happening.

She crawled back through the undergrowth to the place where the guerilla had fired on her, and watched the place he had been carefully. If he hadn't gone while she ran off then he must have slipped away without her noticing, because some time passed and nothing more happened, even when Mulan threw a stone into the bushes around where the man had been positioned.

Creeping forwards, she collected the fallen arrows from the ground and hid them up her sleeve. Then she began to tear through camp in search of Shang, who – it being lunch time or thereabouts – she finally found eating in the mess tent with Chi Fu, as they were the only men of rank in camp and had no choice.

"Um... Captain Sha...Captain L... uh _Sir_," Mulan rushed as she ran over and only just stopped herself bowling straight over the table by accident. Shang flicked his gaze over to her coldly, and opened his mouth to speak.

"What do you think you are doing, Soldier?!" Chi Fu interrupted before Shang could get a word out. "Approaching an Officer and disturbing his meal like this? Know your place!"

"I...uh... Sir....well I have something I _really_ need to show the Captain," Mulan muttered awkwardly, looking around nervously in fear of being watched by anyone.

"What in the Middle Kingdom does _that _mean?" Chi Fu retorted. "There is nothing a lowly recruit would have of interest to a superior officer. You are made to follow orders, not chase us around like puppies barking for attention to every single stick you..." A loud crack disturbed the Consul's chain of speech, as Mulan had reached into her sleeve and whipped out the arrows, clapping them down roughly against the table top.

"Captain..." she murmured, opening her hand slowly and then returning it to her side. Shang stared at them for no more than a second before his hand swiped across the table and he snatched up both arrows.

"I understand," he said stiffly, standing up without a word to Chi Fu. "Good work, Ping." He strode out of the mess tent purposefully only to be followed by Mulan, who wasn't exactly sure what to do with herself now. Shang walked straight over to the training equipment and armed himself with a proper bow and a short sword, and then turned back to face Mulan.

"Where did they come from?" he demanded, and Mulan pointed in the appropriate direction. Shang nodded and then set off urgently.

"You're going after them, sir?" Mulan said as she followed. "Isn't it dangerous to go alone?"

"Less dangerous than taking an unarmed, unprepared recruit," he replied, shooting an accusatory look at her.

"But what will happen if-"

"Fa Ping," he interrupted harshly. "I appreciate your concern, but this is not something you have any influence over. Yours is not the place to tell me what to do." His look hardened even more. "..._Ever_. I will be back before training resumes." With that he moved away, leaving Mulan lingering dumbly behind; scared to follow him and scared of what would happen if he never came back.

"I hope he'll be all right," she said quietly to herself, at which Mushu snaked out of her collar to join in watching Shang leave.

"He'll be _fine_," the dragon assured her. "I mean this is Captain Li Shang! Son of the great General Li! I mean, it's not like he... got beat by a... _girl_... earlier... today..." They both watched Shang now with a far more morbid air. "Uh-Oh."

"I _really _hope he's all right," Mulan muttered.

"You and me both," the dragon quipped, sinking back down into her robe.

As it turned out, their worrying was completely unfounded because Shang returned just as he said he would, without so much as a hair out of place; although, his unhappy expression would suggest that he didn't manage to take care of the guerillas as planned.

From this it was easy – if you knew what was bothering him – to see that he was worried, because the next training session that he put the men through was tougher than ever, and if anyone was so much as coping with the original level of weighting or stress he would simply up their burden, so that every single one of them was moving and working to their absolute limits for the whole day.

"Technically speaking, we have now reached the end of the program," he lectured as they all performed routine staff exercises with heavy bags of rice hanging off every limb. "But before you advance any further, you must have the physical strength to support the next level of knowledge. This will be our focus until we receive orders from the front."

Mulan struggled just as badly as everyone else in this exercise, as there was no way to outwit a bag of rice, and she sweated and ached and suffered like everyone, if not worse; although she did manage at least to complete the task without passing out.

By the end of the day - in which the sun had been shining all afternoon - she was hot, sticky and smelt _awful_. She knew she wouldn't be able to sleep feeling so filthy, and just because she looked like a man didn't mean she had to _smell _like one, so she decided to sneak away from the camp to the lake to wash up. Shang had hopefully scarred the Huns off for the day at least; they were being cautious still so wouldn't to try and attempt any more attacks in the same day... she hoped.

Either way, she was washing whether Mushu liked it or not; although she'd not banked on Yao, Ling and Chien-Po deciding to _follow _her and give her the biggest fright of her life by jumping into the lake with her. She didn't think she was ever going to recover from seeing the 'king of the rock' standing up there _hanging out _in all his.... masculinity.

Never _ever _recover.

Then again seeing the rest of the camp, who decided to follow the other three, stripping off and leaping into the lake was just as bad. She was pretty sure that she never wanted to see a naked man again for a _long, long _time.

At least Yao and Ling had made peace with her. _Naked_ peace. Mulan shuddered to remember.

However, on her way back she passed Chi Fu's newest tent after she accidentally blew up her first with a rocket. It was lit inside so from her place Mulan could see the silhouettes of the men within. Shang had apparently been summoned before the Consul, and neither of them sounded happy.

Not wanting to be a sneak, but realizing that with the whole issue of her knowing about the guerrillas that Shang and Chi Fu probably thought she was one anyway, Mulan dared to creep up and listen to the exchange between the men.

"You think your troops are ready to fight?! HA!" the Consul screeched. "They would not last a minute against those Huns!"

"They completed their training," Shang replied tartly.

"Those _boys _are no more fit to be soldiers than _you _are to be Captain," Chi Fu said poisonously.

"The Guerrillas must be dealt with," Shang argued, ignoring the accusations against his rank. "I cannot track them down alone; not while they know this terrain so well. There are men who are ready to deal with them now."

"How do you propose to defeat them? Make them laugh to death at your inadequacy?" Chi Fu retorted. "Other men who are ready? Here speaks the man who was defeated in the ring by a _child _today."

"Fa Ping is a competent soldier," Shang spat. "He could outwit _you _easily."

"Ha! He looks more suited to a harem than an army!" Mulan scowled, but remained crouched by the tent with her ear cocked towards the fabric.

"Once the Emperor reads _my_ report your troops will never see battle. When he sees that you cannot even defeat the threat of a few rouge archers from Shan Yu's army you'll be lucky if you hold onto your position in the army at all, let alone that title of yours."

"Those 'rouges' nearly killed _you_," Shang pointed out, and then it sounded as if Chi Fu were trying to dismiss him. "We're not finished!" he snapped, and Mulan heard the sound of some kind of scuffling that ended quickly. She almost regretted breaking those Hun arrows now. After all, if she still had them she could shoot Chi Fu and they would assume it was the Guerrillas.

"Be careful, Captain," Chi Fu warned. "The General may be your father, but _I _am the Emperor's consul.... and _oh_, by the way, I got that job on my own."

Would they still assume it was Guerrillas if he was repeatedly stabbed? It might work. She was sure no one would miss him. However, before anymore plans to murder could take place she heard the whine of Shang's dismissal and the rustle of fabric as he left the tent. Mulan jumped up and ran around to see the Captain.

"Heeeeey," she lulled in her most masculine voice. "I'll hold him, and you punch!" She had heard Yao saying that to someone a few days ago; that was a manly thing to say, right? "Heh! Heh!" she added for good measure.

Shang walked straight by her. He barely even _looked _at her.

"...Or not..." She really needed to get a hang of this male conversation thing. Maybe she needed to compliment him? This wasn't really a time for jokes, not if the Captain was really worried. Perhaps it would be better to assure him.

"For what it's worth, I think you're a _great_ Captain," she called out to him as he walked away. Shang paused slightly, glanced back at her, and then kept going. "Damn," she muttered. Not only did _that _not work, but it sounded _way_ too... she looked down at her feet and saw Mushu positioned there on the ground with his little arms crossed haughtily over his underbelly.

"I saw that," he accused.

"...What?" she responded awkwardly.

"You _like _him don't you?"

"No-oo," she denied far too obviously. Maybe she liked him _just _a little. She just... cared about what happened to him, that was all. The thought of Shang treating her like a girl still completely baffled, but as Ping she simply didn't want anything _bad _to happen to him.

"Hm yeah right, sure, I totally belie- GO TO YOUR TENT!" Mushu commanded, obviously worrying that to allow Mulan any more chances to try and 'comfort' the Captain would not end well. Not if she was still blushing like she was now. Not to mention he had some serious meddling to get up to.

"I think it's time we took this war into our _own _hands," he muttered to Crick-ee.

"I couldn't agree more," Mulan whispered to herself, overhearing the Guardian as she turned and walked off. "Watch out, Huns, here I come."

She needed a plan, first of all, so while she did return to her tent for a bit, she didn't remain there too long. The problem with guerrillas, she considered, is that they saw you coming before you saw them, and they had the advantage in this terrain. So what Mulan had to do was get to a situation where she could get them into open ground without them killing her first... she needed something to trick them... something...

The idea hit her suddenly, and she almost leapt up in the air at its own brilliance. _What_ a plan! Thank goodness the moon was out tonight, and there was some light to be found. She hurriedly gathered up the things she needed and stuffed them into a cloth pack, then crept out of her tent towards the grazing areas.

"Hey, Khan," she whispered, coaxing her horse over quietly. "Ready to kick some Hun butt?" She untied her horse and walked him out of camp, climbing up onto his back and riding into the cover of the forest as soon as she was outside the camp boundaries. Hopefully no one would miss their being gone, although with the water party at the lake _most _of the men were technically missing.

Some part of her mind realized that what she was doing was incredibly dangerous, but the other half pointed out that unless someone did something about the Huns then Shang was going to get in even more trouble, and there was something she could do that no one else could.

Ensuring that there really _was _no one around, Mulan slowly stripped off her fighting robe and unbound her chest. She re-dressed plainly, but let down her wet hair and combed it out into a more feminine style, also wrapping her sheet-blanket around her waist as a loose skirt, and pulled her belt tighter to accentuate her waist.

She armed not herself, but Khan, hiding her bow under the rest of her clothes against his dark hide, and then gathering a bundle of sticks and binding them together around her quiver, so that her arrows were hidden in between a clump of what looked like firewood. She carried only a slim blade used for cutting down vegetation to clear a path, not a fighting sword in by any appearances, and something that she had to make use of as she rode deeper into the forests. The very last thing she snapped from the kindling, and hid against her skin up her sleeve; just in case.

Eventually she had to light a torch as the trees blocked out all the natural light of the night, and she kept her ears and other senses open for the slightest indication of human movement. This plan had better work, she thought to herself.

At long last she heard a noise, and on cue tears began to fill her eyes.

"Papa?!" she screamed as loud as she could, this time swinging the tone of her voice in the completely opposite direction to how she had been speaking for so long now. "Papa?! Where are you?" She sobbed a little for effect, and pulled on Khan's reins clumsily, appearing as if she did not know how to control a horse too well.

"Please Papa!" she cried again, and then the sound that had set her off grew closer. Her heart pounded in her chest. "Papa is that you?!" she said weakly, and then bit her lip as into the light of her torch stepped a tall and pale-faced man, with harsh-cut yellow eyes and a bow poised ready in his hand.

"Oh! Oh!" Mulan shrieked, feigning absolute ignorance. "Sir please don't hurt me!" she wailed. "I was out riding with my Papa and we got separated. I've been looking for him all day and it's getting so late! _Please, _sir," she begged, "I'll do anything to see my baba again. I'm so scared!"

"You should be, little girl," the man said sinisterly, his bow falling lax in his hand. "These are dangerous parts you've wandered into." Not too sure whether to be pleased or scared, Mulan saw a sparkle of what she assumed to be desire in the man's eye. It had occurred to her that these men must have been camped out here for a _long _time, and judging from the complaints of all the men back camp, the touch of a woman was something they longed for _constantly_.

"Please sir, I'm just a lost farm girl," she said breathily, her fingers twitching around the short blade she held on the other side of Khan, hidden from the man's view, although she was sure he knew she had the thing. "If you've seen my papa please tell me where to find him, I'd do anything to get back home." She blinked heavily and the crocodile tears fell from her eyes; she saw the dark look of lust intensifying in the man's face, and he stepped closer.

"Me and my friends can help you find your papa, little girl," he leered. "You can come with us and I'm _sure _we can find him for you." He took a step closer to the horse. "First, how about you hand me that little knife you have there?" Mulan looked to her hand and then back at him in confusion.

"Oh... y-yes, of course sir," she mumbled bashfully, and held out the handle towards him. The Hun took the blade from her and Mulan felt her heart leap up into her mouth – this was it, this was the deciding moment. She couldn't hesitate now, no matter what the consequences were. She thought of her father. She thought of Shang. "W-where are your friends?" she asked meekly, and the Hun dropped her blade to the ground and took a step closer.

"Just over this hill to the east," he murmured salaciously, "but _first_, how about a little kiss?" He reached out and grabbed a fistful of Mulan's top, and then pulled her close to him. At that moment she flicked her arm and the broken arrowhead flew out of her sleeve into her hand, where she grasped it tight, and before the Hun could press his thin, pasty lips to hers she plunged it into his neck, twisting it in her fingers – she knew it was a weak point because she felt her own blood beating there when she trained. The Huns bodies were the same as theirs, and they would injure just as easily.

The man's first reaction was shock, as Mulan pushed him backwards and he grasped at his bleeding neck in horror. He staggered back a few steps as blood gushed over his hands, and Mulan leapt from her horse and landed in front of him, crouching down low as she hit the ground and then springing up hard as she lashed out a fierce upward kick to his face, knocking him down and hopefully out for good. She wiped the blood from her hands emotionlessly on her robe and climbed back onto Khan.

She'd known she would have to do this, but she didn't try to fool herself into thinking the man had been any less human than her. She was a soldier, she was going to have to kill sooner or later, and she would pay for it in her next life, glory or dishonour it may be.

Riding up the hill the Hun had described to her in his last words, she heard as he'd promised the sound of men speaking to one another and as she got closer a fire crackling. She dismounted and rested Khan's reins on a tree, asking him to wait there until she got back. Judging from the voices there were only two more, three at most. For the first time Mulan thought not of how to evade or non-lethally beat them, but how to kill them. It was a cold thought, and she felt sure that something had changed now forever with this.

She couldn't give up though. Not now, with the victory she needed not only for her but for her Captain so close. She had to take lives to save lives, and these would only be the first. Her hands shook, but she was otherwise calm.

Her position had the advantage of being on the edge of a ridge, behind which the men had set up a temporary camp – it was advantageous in that unless you'd known it was there you wouldn't have seen it until you reached the very edge of the dip, but Mulan was ready and waiting. Crawling up there on her belly, her bow and arrows by her side, she spotted the three. One short, one tall, and one much more burly than the others.

They looked almost like Yao, Ling and Chien-Po. Mulan closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Lives for lives. These men wanted to kill her Emperor, she reminded herself, and she couldn't let that happen. They also wanted to kill Shang, which just made things _personal_.

They were gathered around the fire like sitting ducks, drinking from ceramic jugs – drunk, even _easier _targets – and talking loudly. Their sense of safety had obviously grown after being unchallenged for so long. It wasn't a mistake they weren't ever going to make again.

She crawled right up to the edge and hid behind a tree – bushes had leaves that rustled – as she had to remain unheard. She calmed herself and silently loaded her bow, training her aim on the first one, the tall thin one who would be the smallest target.

"Here goes nothing, Shang," she mouthed to herself, and then released. Her aim was true, taught well by a skilled archer, and the arrow leapt out and drove right into the first man's eye, killing him instantly. The other two stared at him in confusion and horror for a moment, and then their instincts kicked in and they leapt to their feet. Mulan had already reloaded in this moment of delay and before the largest man could take another step he was hit from behind in the middle of the head, falling down dead, to the terror of the last, who fumbled for a weapon drunkly before another arrow came darting out and hit him first in the arm, then a fourth quickly following straight into his chest, stopping his heart and making him crumple slowly to the ground with his comrades.

You needed to fight fire with fire, she told herself, and use guerrilla tactics to kill guerrillas. Their carelessness and overconfidence after living in this region un-threatened for so long, picking off men one at a time as they pleased, had cost them their lives. They would pay for their sins in the next life now, as Mulan would pay for hers. The wheel of life kept on revolving.

She lay there for a few minutes, panting deeply, making sure they were not going to come back; although, it was pretty unlikely. She got to her feet shakily, and staggered back over to Khan, wrapping her arms around his neck for a moment and hugging him. She'd scared herself, and only by clinging close to her horse and thinking of her father could she manage to calm her breathing and stop trembling.

She pulled the pack from Khan's side and changed back into the clothes of a man, of a soldier, and tied up her hair and bound her chest again. Trust her to get covered in blood the day she finally got to bathe. At least her training outfit was clean... ish. There was a little blood splashed here and there on the sleeves from where the first Hun had spurted a bit, but she looked normal otherwise.

Although she _wasn't_ aware of the streak of blood she had across her forehead from where she'd rubbed herself in a daze before wiping his blood off her hands. She climbed up onto Khan and rested her forehead against his neck.

"Lets go back to camp, Khan," she murmured, and slowly they began to move out.

* * *

Eeeeh more risky, I know, but something had to give, didn't it? The _Mulan_ Disney didn't show you, heheh.

Leave a Raview if you please.


	8. Dog

OH GOD AND I HAVE BEEN DOING RL STUFF AND DRINKING AND ITS LATE AND I WANT TO GO TO BED AND I'M MEANT TO HAVE JUDGES THIS FANFICTIONS AND I FORGOT I AM MEANT TO UPDATE SO I HAVEN'T EVEN EDITED IT AT ALL AND SFKJDHSFKSJHFSKD OH NOOOOooooooooo....

Here is the chapter, this is the last finished one, so I'mma say it'll be wed-fri before the epilogue comes out. YES FOLKS THIS IS THE LAST ONE. ENJOY!

* * *

"Mulan?! Just _where _have you been?!" Mushu roared the moment Mulan crawled wearily into her tent that night. "You've been off playing Chinese Checkers with the Captain again haven't you?! Well while _you _were off flirting the orders came through for our departure... General Li needs... us at the..." Mulan was sitting with her legs crossed just staring into space. "Mulan?" Mushu asked softly.

"Hm?" she murmured, turning to look at him in confusion. She clutched her bundle of clothes in her arms tightly, the blood on them drying stiff.

"Mulan? Hey, hey, girl, what's with the..." Mushu rushed. "Oh my ancestors... is that blood?" Mulan looked down at her dirtied forearms and the bundle in her lap, and then looked back up at him.

"Don't worry, it's not mine," she said quietly, almost detached from her own voice.

"It's not _yours? _Okay_,_ _one, _where've you been, and _two, _whose blood isthat?!" the dragon spoke so fast his words were almost tripping over each other, and Mulan hugged her clothes a little tighter to her chest.

"Huns." Was her single-worded answer.

"Huns? _Huns? _Don't tell me you went after them?!" he gasped, and Mulan nodded. "Why?! How?! You... come on, Mulan, talk to me." He crept up to her side and crawled onto her lap, climbing up to stand on the bundle of clothes and grip her face in his clawed hands. "Look at me," he pleaded. "You're all right. Snap out of it now."

She blinked, and slowly something human started returning to her eyes, which then began to water slightly.

"You heard Chi Fu," she said quietly. "He said if we couldn't handle four Huns with bows we'd never get sent to battle. I couldn't let him humiliate everyone like that. Someone had to take care of them."

"That someone didn't have to be _you_," Mushu exclaimed.

"I was the only one who could get close," she explained. "I went into the woods and changed. They'd kill a man at first sight, and never reveal themselves, but a lost, crying girl?" There was a sudden sparkle of brilliance in her eyes as she recalled the plan. "I was the bait," she said simply. "The first one keeping watch came out of hiding and spoke to me, I said I had lost my father, and begged him for help. He bought it straight away, he wanted to... he wanted my body," she murmured awkwardly, her face flushing as she thought of the way she'd used herself against him.

"That let him get close enough to me for me to..." she broke off again, and looked down at her arms and clothes. "Its his blood," she said shortly by way of explanation. "I got him to tell me where the rest of them were camped before I killed him; he was going to bring me back to them." She looked around, and her arms loosened, allowing Mushu to pry the dirty things from her arms.

"They had become so confidant no one would find them, that no one would dare come looking for them at that time of night; someone who would creep up and pick them off as they tried to do to us. It was so... _easy_..." she whispered. "There were three of them back there; I took them out with arrows, didn't even get close enough to see their faces properly. I don't think there are any more."

"Yeah an' if there _are _they ain't gonna be hanging around long once they see their buddies," Mushu remarked. "You did good, Mulan," he said firmly, holding her face in his paws again. "Might be scary, but your daddy killed men too, and his before him." She sighed heavily.

"I know," she replied. "I just..." She looked down at her arms again. "I can't believe I really did it."

"You're a soldier now," Mushu stated. "It's natural. That Captain's been training you in more ways than you ever realized." She nodded, and finally let go of the bloodied clothes for good; the white clothes of a woman now stained with the blood of a soldier. "Now, why don't you go and wash up."

"Can't I do it tomorrow?" she asked wearily.

"No time, no time," he told her hurriedly. "Didn't you hear? The orders are out; you're all heading up to Tung-Shao to assist General Li." Mulan missed the proud smirk creeping in at the corner's of Mushu's mouth as he mentioned this.

"Oh," she murmured. "I guess that's good then..." It occurred to her that maybe she didn't have to kill those men, if the orders came in this evening. There was nothing she could do about it now, and if she hadn't killed them now they only would've followed them and taken out more of their soldiers. Like Mushu said, it was natural for a soldier to kill; that was what they were made for. That's what she'd become.

No longer in the trance she'd let herself be carried home in, Mulan got up as Mushu suggested and walked back outside, breathing in the cool night air tranquilly. She went over to the place the horses were tethered, Khan among their ranks, and rinsed her hands in the water trough, then wet and wrung out her sleeves, which were spattered and streaked with the man's blood too. She managed to get most of it out, but did have to slip out of it for a few minutes to really scrub out all the stains – making sure no one was around to see her. Putting it back on the wet material was cold and soothing against her skin, but she didn't want to catch a cold so close to leaving so wandered into the middle of camp in search of a fire to dry off next to.

The men had all been swimming that day, so she suspected there would have been some kind of bonfire built to warm them up afterwards, as there was most evenings anyway; as predicted, she spotted the dying embers of a fire that the men had obviously been gathered around after returning from the lake. She approached it and sat down as close as she could and held out her arms over the centre; the embers were still pretty hot.

She sat there drifting around in thought, trying to process the events of the evening and make some sense of it in her head. She hadn't imagined that they would leave so suddenly, but then she'd only heard it from Mushu so maybe it made sense that she didn't really feel like it was happening yet.

"Ping!" Now it seemed like she _would _get a proper confirmation, as the voice was none other than Li Shang.

"Good evening," she murmured with a heavy sigh, not moving from her place by the fire even when Shang ran over to her.

"Where have you been?!" the Captain barked. "We searched the whole camp for you!" _We _meant _he_, but he didn't mention that.

"I went out for a bit, sir," she replied innocently, and then turned to look up at him. "I'm back now though, so that's all that matters. Is it true we're being sent out?"

"Uh..." Shang faltered, staring at the person sat by his feet. "What's on your face?" he asked suddenly, pointing to the dirty red-brown smear on Mulan's brow where she had wiped her forehead with bloodied hands without realizing.

"What? Oh!" Mulan felt the area Shang pointed to and felt the dried crispy texture of the blood. "It's just a little..." she mumbled quickly, hoping the Captain would not pick apart her words and rubbing her forehead with her damp sleeve. As she wet it the colour brightened again.

"Blood," Shang said. "It's blood. Are you hurt? Did the..."

"I don't think the Huns will bother us any more, sir," she said quietly, wiping her face clean with her other sleeve and then trying to rub the residue off her dirtied one. Shang frowned in confusion, furrowing his brow at her.

"What do you mean?" he asked. "Ping, surely you didn't-"

"We're being sent out anyway, so it's not like it matters, right?" she interrupted brightly. "I'm just saying I reckon the Huns will have cleared off, you know. If they know we're leaving."

Shang knew that didn't explain the blood, and he strongly suspected that Ping had gone out and done something about the guerillas, but he couldn't imagine what, or how, because even _he'd _been unable to track even one of the men down. Ping was smart, but smart enough to take down a unit of guerillas by himself and come out completely unharmed? It seemed impossible. What was he going to destroy all of Shan Yu's army single-handedly next?

He couldn't believe it, and even if it _had _happened, she didn't seem to want to talk about it, so there wasn't much he could do.

"Yes, we're being sent to Tung-Shao," he said instead of asking the things he really wanted to. "We leave at dawn. Be packed up and ready to depart by then. Your horse will be needed to pull supplies."

"Understood, Captain Shang," she said calmly, still staring into the fire with her arms held out to dry. Calling the Captain by his given name instead of his family name didn't really feel like so much of an issue when she had the images of men dying at her hand playing in her mind – she wondered if Shang had done this: killed a man and watched him die. She wasn't sure if he'd actually seen real battle, he was young and had only recently come from his own training academy.

"Um," she began awkwardly. "Captain Shang?" She said it again, and while before she would've possibly blushed at the upward jump of closeness between them, now it didn't feel like much. Perhaps like she'd earned the right to call him that, even if he didn't know what she'd done; he didn't seem to have a problem with it either way.

"Yes?" Shang answered.

"Have you ever killed anyone?" She looked over at him, and saw the brief flicker of surprise. Did he think she was scared about going to war, or did he suspect that she was talking about the guerillas?

"I..." Shang stuttered. How could such a simple question from this person make him feel so flustered? "I.... yes," he said weakly. "Yes I have."

"Huns?"

"No, men serving under a warlord to the West," he answered. "Why do you ask?"

"What did you feel like afterwards?"

"I was doing my duty. My feelings did not matter," he replied coldly, and to his surprise, Mulan gave him a disappointed look, rather than one of understanding.

"Is it easier to say that than to feel anything?" she remarked, turning away from him, and Shang actually felt a little shamed by the critical young soldier. So he sat down beside her, spreading his hands out behind him and leaning back.

"I was... scared at first," he admitted. "I wondered if the men I killed had lives and families as I had, and I wondered if their spirits would follow me for taking their lives, but..." he stopped, and paused for a moment, looking sideways to find Mulan watching him carefully.

"I moved on. I do not pretend that I don't have blood on my hands, but I cannot dwell on it every day for the rest of my life. It is the role of a soldier to fight. Every man who conscripts knows this. I would never kill a man who was not a soldier." He heard Mulan sigh again, and he wondered what she was thinking about – was she concerned for the coming journey, or for actions that had passed that she would not tell of? He desperately wanted to ask.

"Ping?" He cracked eventually, and proposed the question, "Did you kill the guerillas?" She turned to look at him full on, staring at him directly until he almost felt embarrassed.

"Don't be silly," she said with half a smile, turning back to face the fire. "How would someone like me kill four armed men?" Then they were silent for a while.

"How do you know there are four?" he asked.

"Just a guess, sir," she replied cheerfully, and somehow Shang knew that she was lying. He couldn't know how she did it, or why she suddenly decided to do it, but he was certain that those men were dead one way or another. "I was just worried about leaving camp. There are no more practices once we leave here. It's all real."

"Yes," Shang admitted. "It's all real after this." Now he too heaved a sigh; it was a sighing kind of night. "Don't worry," he told her after a little pause. "It's my job to protect you all." She didn't look at him, but she smiled again.

"Yes, that makes me feel a lot better," she responded, and then brought her hands together to rub against each other and see how dry her robe was. "I think I better go to bed now," she announced, standing up and dusting herself down. "We have a big day tomorrow, don't we?"

"Yes. Goodnight, Ping," Shang spoke quietly, his eyes closed against the dying warmth of the fire.

"Goodnight... Shang," she replied softly, and Shang's eyes flitted beneath his eyelids. How could the words of a mere boy shape his emotions like this? How could just the speaking of his name cause his chest to tighten as they crept closer and closer to friendship? Why Ping? Why, of all the people in the world, would it have to be Fa Ping?

He did not know, but Shang had plenty of time in his sleepless night to think about it.

The next day everyone was assembled as ordered, and in a matter of an hour the entire camp had been dismantled and packed away or burnt if it couldn't be carried.

"Hey, Ping!" Ling called over to Mulan as they all loaded things into the wagons. "You disappeared last night!"

"Uh... yeah," she replied lowly. "I was really tired so I just went to bed early."

"But we went and looked for you in your tent," Yao, not far off, added. "You weren't in there."

"Oh wasn't I? Heh! Heh! I coulda sworn..." she mumbled, and then noticed the Captain watching her from afar, obviously listening in on their conversation. "I got up at one point for a little walk... I went to brush down Khan, you must have looked for me then."

"Oooohh, I see," Yao growled. "Well you missed out. We were all drinkin' and singin' war songs."

"Aaaw shucks," Mulan said entirely unconvincingly.

"We don't have time for chatter, men!" Shang bellowed from afar. "The General needs our help urgently!" Soon the talk stopped in fear of a scolding from Shang, and quickly everything was loaded up and their entire force was mobilised: they were leaving at last.

Without much more than a backward glance, they set off in a march towards the mountains, heading up high to reach Tung-Shao. The only things left behind were the smoking remains of the things they burnt, and the climbing post, abandoned; a lone marker of something that once was.

The passed through the forests, and thankfully they didn't go anywhere near where Mulan knew the ex-Hun campsite had been, as she didn't want to have to face any questioning from the Captain should he come across it and suspect her. It wasn't that she was ashamed of what she'd done, because she knew it'd been necessary and for China's sake they were better off dead, but she simply didn't feel the need for Shang or anyone else to know about it. She was afraid that they might think differently of her knowing that she had killed not one but four men with her own hands in cold blood.

It was just... easier, if no one knew about it. It wasn't long, anyway, before the forests began to thin out as they climbed upwards, occasionally passing farms and paddy fields, crossing rivers as gradually the terrain became more brutal.

They had reached a rocky mountain path that would lead them into the next valley a little past noon, and though the men hadn't lost heart yet the monotony of the journey was beginning to wear on all, including Shang. He kept his guard up, although he was certain that no one would be pursuing them because he was _certain _Ping had somehow stopped them. He still had to watch out for the welfare of the rest of the men.

They crossed over a large overhang at the height of the path's trail around this particular mountain; the path was a few men wide, with a steep slope cluttered with fallen stones and ratty weeds that dropped down for ten or so meters then dropped straight off to nothing. It was named for its resemblance to the flat sideways growing fungi that are seen on logs, although that information wasn't really useful, it just meant that if you fell you had a short slide awaiting you before the plummet to your death.

He kept an eye on Ping at _all _times. He did not trust the boy's ability not to fall down or off things. Even if he _was_ possibly a deadly killer.

However, knowing that something was going to happen wasn't necessarily a good preventative or preparatory measure, because when something _did _happen – one man pushed another who bumped into someone who fell into Ping or something – and she went, _just_ as Shang expected, tumbling over the edge, he still panicked and almost knocked several people down to join her as he raced down the length of the men and threw himself down the slope after her, leaping down the steep slope from hold to hold manically.

"WAIT!" Mulan screamed as she saw Shang flinging himself down the rocks above her. "I'm okay!" she yelled up, her hands fisted tight in some weeds and her toes jammed into a couple of crevices. "I grabbed onto something!" she smiled to show Shang she really was safe, and a few people on the path chuckled at the dramatic reaction of the Captain being rendered useless.

Shang froze where he was, a few meters above her, very uncomfortably and very awkwardly. How was he supposed to expect her to save herself this time?

"Ah... good!" he replied shakily, his voice trembling just a little from the speed of his heart. He didn't want to admit it, but Ping was his favourite, and he wanted to and felt obliged to protect him more than any of the other men. It wasn't something he was proud of, but he couldn't deny it while his body betrayed him in these ways. "Climb up then!" he suggested, repositioning himself and holding out a hand. "I'll give you a hand up."

"Thanks," Mulan replied, although she didn't _really _need a hand up and would've been fine by herself, she understood the Captain's need not to have made a complete fool of himself. She carefully climbed up a few places and reached out for his hand. The moment their palms brushed Shang's closed firmly around hers and yanked her up powerfully, almost swinging her away from the rockface until she was level with him. Her body directly above his, she was about to fall flat against him when at the last moment she stuck out her free arm and propped herself off, releasing a hugebreath of relief as she did.

Lying _on top _of Shang wasn't exactly a great idea for Mulan, considering he might notice that her body underneath these clothes wasn't actually, well, a _man's_.

Still panting in exhaustion, there was a moment that passed before she noticed that lying on top of the Captain wasn't exactly much better than this, because they were almost face to face, their bodies weren't much better, and Shang was giving her a look that suggested he was really uncomfortable with either this position or how _he felt _about this position. Neither of which were good.

"Cl...climb up," he said brokenly, his adam's apple jerking in his throat as he swallowed uncomfortably. Mulan didn't need to be told twice, and put one foot on top of his leg as a foothold, took the next one on his stomach, and then a third on his shoulder; running up him like a set of conveniently placed steps.

"OW!" Shang snapped as she trod heavily on him, but was at least inwardly thankful for the abrupt end to the confrontation. He turned to see Mulan haring back up the slope like mountain game, treading lightly and jumping as much as she climbed. She was back onto the path in no time.

Shang followed a little slower, partially in shock and partially in pain. Partially just too embarrassed to say anything until he was back on his feet. When he _did _get back up, though...

"_Who _was responsible for this?!" he bellowed as he set himself back up on the path. Four or so men all pointed at another man, and the majority pointed at Ping. "He was the one who _fell_," Shang hissed. "I want to know who pushed him. Unless you all want to give the horses a break by dragging the carts?" There was a rabble of voices, all accusing each other, until at last someone stepped forwards.

"I'm responsible," said Mulan. Shang pulled a face at her.

"I saw you fall," he pointed out.

"I tripped," she insisted.

"No you didn't," he snapped, and then turned his glare back across the men around her. "We are going to assist a _General _in a _war_," he hissed. "You boys cannot play around like this. Ping could've been killed before we even got there!"

"Really, Captain, I _fell_," Mulan demanded unwaveringly, preventing Shang from driving the truth out of anyone. He scowled and turned his back.

"If anything like this happens again you will _all_ be dragging the carts, understood?" he growled and no one dared push their luck to protest. "Ping, control your horse!" he barked as he passed Khan, who was causing a fuss because Mulan had fallen into danger again.

"Yes Captain Shang!" He heard her say from behind him, and he frowned to himself as the march continued, pressing his hand over his eyes for a few moment and cursed Fa Ping under his breath. The boy was going to do him no good, not now and not ever. Far too unpredictable; too damn smart to be so stupid at times, and if anything like that happened again Shang was just going to have to sign his dignity away for good. Let him _fall_, he told himself, knowing that he didn't mean it.

The men began to start singing as the day wore on them – something about women he observed – and Shang shuddered to think of the chaos having girls along with them might cause. He could barely handle Fa Ping, let alone any women, getting into danger and causing fights among the men.

Thank the gods he was spared _that _at least.

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I am sorry if any parts of this suck because I haven't read it over but GODDAMIT WHY DID I SAY FRIDAYS FOR UPDATES I'VE BEEN OUT SINCE I FRAKKIN GOT/WOKE UP TODAY.

Review for procrastination and the END OF CAMP-BASED STORYLINE OOOOOOOH!


	9. Epilogue

_Waaaaaarrrrk! _Wow I'm sorry this took so long. It wasn't finished when I finished the plot and has since taken all this time to do. Good things come to those that wait, they say, so here you go._  


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_

_Epilogue_

* * *

Spring hadn't even ended in the time that Mulan had been away.

Pretty much everything she had ever known or been changed since she left these familiar walls, but back here the only difference was the peachy blossoms now slowly drifting down from all the trees._ She_ felt like another person, but surrounded with everything she had grown up with and knew so well, it was almost as if everything outside these walls had been a dream.

How could she have run away from home, joined the army, destroyed the forces of Shan Yu and then killed the man himself, saving the life of her Emperor and all of China by extension?

It must have been someone else, she thought, as she perched below a tree and stared up at the heavy blossom-laden boughs, now dropping as Summer crept up on them. Surely she could not have accomplished all that herself, but here was the sword of Shan Yu on the bench next to her, and there lay the Emperor's crest too. It _had_ to have happened, because there was no other explanation for these things.

Not to mention that if running away and becoming a soldier had just been a fantasy, then one of her hallucinations was currently walking around the compound, because there stood Li Shang; like he was perfectly comfortable and had always intended to be here. Like he'd _planned _it.

He had arrived no more than fifteen minutes after she had, so she knew that he must have left the Imperial City not long after her. She had ridden fast too, so he must have hurried if he managed to keep up with her, and the thought of Shang racing on horseback all the way here after her was as surprising as it was flattering.

He had chased her all the way from the capital, a ride that had been several hours in length, but all he'd had to say was 'you fight good' or 'you forgot your helmet' – she was lucky she knew Shang by now, or she might have thought that was really all there was.

Not showing his feelings was a good aspect for a Capt... a General, now, but as a _man _it was somewhere between infuriating and endearing. She knew _something _was there, but she just had to find out what it was exactly.

Shang himself was pacing up and down the gardens thoughtfully, and happened to catch Mulan looking at him; while a fleeting smile passed between them at first, it quickly morphed to that look of anxiety and awkwardness that he'd adopted around her as 'Mulan'... and possibly a little bit before, as a matter of fact. It was the same look he'd worn when 'Ping' had held himself over the Captain, or when he had saved Shang's life in the mountains.

Mulan wanted to know once and for all what his actions meant, and she wasn't going to wait when he was just a few paces away, so she caught his eye again and pointed to the bench beside her shyly, inviting him to join her rather than just share eye contact. After looking around only to realize that if anything Mulan's family _wanted _him to go and sit beside her, he made his way over.

"Your grandmother is..." he murmured uncomfortably as he came into hearing distance.

"Forward, I know," Mulan finished. "It's come with her age. Um, please don't let her make you feel uncomfortable."

"I don't," he rushed. "I mean... a _little_, but not because of _you _or anyth..." he mumbled, tripping over his own words, until with a sigh he stopped himself and sat down, propping his elbows on his knees and resting his face carefully in his hands.

"I'm still the same Fa Ping, you know," Mulan said gingerly as Shang covered his face with his palms, trying to ease his discomfort.

"That cannot be," he murmured through his fingers reluctantly. "Fa _Ping_ as a woman would be..."

"I know," she interrupted, "an awful daughter. Even worse as a prospective bride, and I'm both." Shang turned his head slightly to look up at her over his fingertips, a look composed of both worry and confusion on his face. "Well put it this way," she elaborated. "My Matchmaker was... _less_ than pleased with me when I visited."

Shang dared to smile, although it was behind his hands so she could not see.

"If your behaviour under _my_ authority was anything to go by," he said warily, "then you injured and humiliated her?"

"Pretty much" Mulan admitted boldly – a heroine of China hardly needed to be embarrassed about a crabby old Matchmaker anymore. "I ended up throwing a pot of tea over her."

Shang didn't say anything, but his look suggested that he wished to know exactly what her reason was _this time._

"Well she was kind of... _on fire_..." Mulan explained, at which Shang laughed loudly and then stopped just as quickly, dropping his chin back to rest on one hand.

"You set fire to her? Gods protect the poor woman," he chuckled.

"It was terrifying at the time," Mulan said nostalgically. "Well, until I arrived at the training camp and learned _true _terror." Shang looked up at her and raised his eyebrows, while half a grin twisted the corner of his mouth.

"Surely you don't mean me?" he _almost _teased, but with a threat of scolding in his tone.

"You _were _frightening at first!" she protested. "I'd never been so scared in my life than that first day of training."

"What? You meant when you hit me with your staff?!" Shang gaped. "That's not the usual reaction to intimidation, you know."

"It was after that," she countered, "it was _because _of that. You grabbed me and... well, I just thought you were going to kill me there and then." Shang laughed again.

"I thought you were closer to killing _me_," he remarked. "Jumping out of trees onto-"

"I fell!"

"Falling out of trees, then. Not to mention you passed out up that cliff later in the week and I had to throw myself half way down it to catch you." Mulan's face coloured with embarrassment. Shang noticed and then deliberately continued, thinking that it was only fair play considering what she'd been doing to him since Tung Shao. "I had to carry you up the rest of the way on one arm." She now looked away and bit her lip.

"I'm sorry," she said humbly.

"You were lucky," he stated, "and... you also redeemed yourself in the end."

"I would've gone home if I hadn't," she reminded him. "It was climbing that got me out of that mess in the end." They both thought of the arrow, and the huge turnaround that came from that night.

"I would've dismissed you sooner if I had known it would transform you into a great soldier," Shang baited. "I genuinely wondered if you existed purely to antagonise me after that." Mulan shifted in discomfort, and in spite of his better conscience Shang was pleased with himself.

She'd made him feel like this plenty of times, most distressingly so when he still believed she was a man. He would be a liar to say there wasn't some feeling of relief when he learned of her true gender; then again, didn't that mean he had feelings for her that were meant only for women?

Wait, who was he _kidding_. He hadn't chased her all the way back from the capital at breakneck speed on horseback because he felt nothing but the ties of male friendship between them. Even _if _the Emperor himself had to point it out to him before he would act on the impulses he had been trying so hard to ignore.

"Mulan.. I..." he muttered, and suddenly her gaze was straight back on him, intense and definitely expectant, if he didn't say so himself. She knew damn well what he wanted to say, he was sure of it.

Shang pursed his lips. He tried to make the words come out, but he'd never spoken a word of love or affection to a woman in his life. It was like trying to make a war horse climb mountains like a goat.

"...I was wondering... uh... if... if you really killed Shan Yu's guerillas back at the camp," he asked in the end, failing to speak his feelings to her as per requirement. Her eyes widened suddenly, and instead of warmth there was fear and panic in her expression.

"Why do you ask?" she responded sharply. "Why ask _now_? Does it matter anymore?" While she could tell him about her disastrous attempts to be a suitable woman for marriage, there was still some reflex that desperately wanted to hold back from _anyone _how she had killed directly, with her own hands. It seemed too brutal.

Shan Yu and his army she had ended _in_directly, not actually striking them with the death blow herself. The guerillas had died right before her eyes, in her hands. There was still a part of her that wanted to keep that a secret because what woman, what decent, honourable woman, had that kind of blood on her hands?

"I was curious to know how a girl could kill four men I was unable to even track," Shang said coolly.

"Exactly," Mulan said bitterly. "That is exactly it, Shang. A _girl_."

"Well what does _that_ mean?" he retorted equally sharply.

"They would never reveal themselves to a man," she confessed with a wince. "They didn't... I mean they _wouldn't_ suspect a girl on her own in the woods at night."

Shang realized instantly the trick she had played; it was the same thing she had done to get their men past the guards of Shan Yu into the Palace. How simple but deceptive it would have been – he was certain himself that if _he'd _met a girl like Mulan wandering around on her own, he never would have suspected an attack.

"So you _did_-"

"What _if _I did?" she snapped. "Would you think me murderous, as a woman, to have killed men with my own hands?"

"Then it was blood on your face," he spoke softly against his fingertips, his mind back on the night before they left, so that he barely even considered her question to him now. "You had wet robes..."

"Yes, all right," she sighed, covering her face with her hands as she turned her head down, knowing that she'd have to be a fool to think she could keep the reality from Shang any longer. "I washed out the blood of their watchmen. The rest I... shot from afar. The first had told me where they were camped."

Shang glanced over and realized that she had slumped over and held the expression of someone disgusted with their own actions. He realized that _he _had taught her those skills she had used to kill men, and wondered if she blamed him for it.

"Hey," he murmured, reaching out and gingerly putting a hand on her shoulder in comfort. "You did what you had to do."

"I did my 'duty'," she parroted back to him unsympathetically. "Hardly the duty of a good woman..."

"But the duty of a good soldier," Shang insisted. Mulan dared to look over at him; to her surprise, he didn't seem horrified at all, like she was herself.

"It's not over, you know. The Emperor will need you again," he said. "You are a _great _soldier, Mulan." His hand lingered on her shoulder, reluctant to move now that he had made contact.

"You... really think so?" she said shyly, not yet sure if she could dare to think that perhaps things weren't so bad as she was supposing.

"Yes," he replied, "I am sure of it. I would not be surprised if we met as equals one day."

"_One day_?" Mulan repeated with scorn, her face brightening as she felt her confidence returning with Shang's kind words.

"Oh, you do not agree?" Shang said, his eyebrows cocked and the humour back in his voice. "I _am_ a General now."

"And _I _have the Emperor's crest," she countered, and a crafty idea occurred to her when Shang held his position. "Not to mention... actually, I know _just_ how we can settle this," she said sternly, and then stood up, leading him by the sleeve towards the front of the house, where he saw just what she had in store for him: an _Xiangqi board_, what else?

"Oh, so you propose a rematch?" he challenged, and she nodded with a secretive grin. Something told Shang that he was going to have to work a _lot _harder to secure this victory.

Unfortunately for him, not only was her game stronger this time around, but Shang did find himself watching _her _when he should have been watching the game, and it finally led to a tiny mistake on his part, when he rushed a move because he had not wanted her to think he was staring. She made him pay for it mercilessly, of course, and flipped the entire game around, securing her victory within minutes of his error; finishing with a proud smirk upon her face.

"You took advantage of me," he professed, speaking too quickly for his sensibilities to catch up with his words. "Womanly charms are unfair in a game played by men." He only caught himself after he had spoken, and slammed his mouth shut in horror, gritting his teeth even harder when Mulan laughed at him.

"I don't have a single womanly charm in my entire body, Shang," she said with a chuckle.

"I beg to differ," he responded stiffly, forcing the words even as they resisted being spoken. "You can be perfectly charming."

"When?" she proposed more for fun than anything. "Even dressed as a woman, I still managed to fall and knock you down after jumping off the Emperor's palace."

"That itself is charming_ now_," he said sardonically. "Why, it's happened so many times."

"Not _that _many times."

"More times than anyone else I've known," he pointed out, "and not _all_ men find the same things appealing, either." At this some manner of interest began to sparkle in Mulan's eyes – she wasn't a fool; she knew that the way Shang felt for her must have changed or developed since he learned she was a woman, or he wouldn't have followed her here.

It was different for her because she had always known him as a man, so she'd never had to adjust how she felt about him. For her things could progress slowly, shaping as they went along, but Shang's confrontation had been much more dramatic. That didn't mean, though, that she knew exactly how he felt, or how strongly he felt it.

"What _do_ you find charming, then?" she asked, sounding much more nervous than she meant to.

"Strength," he answered after a pause, his eyes riveted on hers and not moving away for even a second as he spoke. "Bravery... intelligence... loyalty... and devotion," he listed, "to country, as well as family."

"Such a woman is rare to find," she pointed out, thinking back to her lessons prior to matchmaking, or any of her comrade's list of good attributes for women.

"I'd say she is," he replied bluntly, his implications barely disguised. "Such a person might also be unpredictable, unconventional and outright crazy at times."

"Hey!"

"You react as if I were speaking about you," he goaded.

"Aren't you?" she countered. "You did call me the craziest man you've ever met in Tung Shao."

"So I did," he said coolly, rubbing the back of his neck. "But that was Ping, not Mulan."

"We're one and the same," Mulan insisted, but saw that Shang wasn't going to agree, and part of her feared that he'd never be able to get over her lying to him and reach the same stage of trust that he'd given her in the mountains.

"Not so," he said, as she predicted. "For one, Mulan does not speak in quite such a ridiculous way as Ping." Mulan only scowled at him. "Ping was small and weak for his age, and Mulan is strong for hers. Ping is endearing, but Mulan is charming." He gave her a quick look, sizing her up in some way. "Sometimes." Mulan rolled her eyes.

"They are both still me," she pointed out.

"Ah, but one I have only recently met," he replied coolly.

"I was Mulan all along," she said resolutely. "You just didn't know which parts were Ping and which were Mulan. I just... made Ping up."

"Oh no, Ping is definitely real." Mulan began to worry that her family might overhear their conversation now, and far from thinking their converse was inappropriate, they might just think she was developing a split personality disorder.

"How do you mean?"

"Fa Mulan would not have brought down an avalanche on Shan Yu's army, or killed his spies," Shang explained his reasoning soundly. "Ping is the soldier in you, the one who developed throughout your training."

"So you could say that _you _made Ping?" she proposed.

"Yes... I suppose so," he answered, and his brow creased as he thought back to earlier concerns of Mulan resenting him for making her into that. "You don't regret it, do you?"

"What? No," she said unhesitantly. "I was unhappy before I left home too. I hated who I was, I didn't know the person I saw in the mirror," she confessed to him. "But I managed to become something I recognised, something I was proud of. I have you to _thank _for that," she hushed. "So thank you, Shang."

It was then that he became absolutely sure that his feelings were real. There was no way around it. He wanted her _desperately_.

"Mulan... I..." he tried once more, and then crumbled as usual. He'd need to find a different way of doing this. "You're welcome," he murmured, and they sat in a barely comfortable silence for a few minutes.

"What is it you want to say?" she prompted eventually, realizing that if left to his own devices Shang would probably never get it out by the end of the day.

"Uh..." he hummed, his hands knotted tightly together and his eyes in the distance. "How do I..."

"Just say it?" she suggested innocently. "What've you got to lose?" How wrong she was he thought; he had _plenty _to lose. His dignity for one, or what remained of it now.

"I've..." he mumbled, and then with a sudden movement looked right at her. "I've thought about this, Mulan, and I've come to some conclusions," he said firmly, his hands folded tightly together.

"You have?" she said presumptuously, edging around the board to sit closer to Shang's side.

"Yes... and I've realized that... well, if any matchmaker _were _to find favour with you..." he trailed off for a moment, and then resumed. "I... wouldn't be comfortable with you... _marrying_..."

Mulan's breath hitched in her throat, and she didn't dare speak for throwing him off.

"I mean, the threats to China are by no means ended, and if you were to be married off to someone..." _else _he thought to himself but did not say.

"My first duty will always be to China," Mulan stated. "Even _if _I married." She tried to emphasise to Shang that she wasn't about to go running back to matchmakers – she'd done more than enough for her family for one season, all she wanted now was a nice rest.

"Even so!" Shang, however, didn't seem convinced, and continued to press at the issue. "The thing is..." he scratched the back of his neck and then with one heavy breath let his hand drop back to his lap and spoke clearly. "I've thought about it, and I.... wouldn't be happy with you belonging to another...." He swallowed, and Mulan felt her heart beating hard in her chest. "I just couldn't abide by it," he confessed, and she saw the relief at having shed this burden in his face.

"So... what does that mean?" she questioned delicately. "Why must I belong to anyone at all? Can I not simply own myself?"

"Well, I could not go along with that either," he said very softly, and folded his hands together in his lap tensely.

"Why not?!" she challenged; if she had done all this, surely she had earned the right to be her own person and not just the property of a man. "I have proven..."

"It is not that," he interrupted. "It's that... for me to _not_ have you would be almost as bad as seeing another have you." Mulan's temper quickly subdued.

"Oh," she gasped, saying nothing but flapping her mouth like fish until Shang reached over and took her hand in his.

"I could live my life twice over never find a soldier like _you...._ like Ping, I mean," he explained. "I could live it _ten _times over and never find such a woman. My career in the army has always been my highest priority in life, and marriage has not been something I concerned myself with," he paused, "until now."

There was plenty that Mulan wanted to say, but she thought to hold her tongue at least until Shang finished first; she was also quite interested in _what _he was saying too, so there was no rash reason for her to interrupt before he was quite done.

"I considered it long and hard as I followed you here, and I realized that if I were to let you go I would regret it for the rest of my life." Now a shade of happiness began to show under his serious expression, and he continued slightly humorously. "I mean, pass up the chance to try to make a wife out of Fa Mulan? I'd have to be mad not to."

"You'd have to be mad _to_ as well," she pointed out seriously. She was overjoyed that Shang really did feel like this towards her, but she felt duty-bound to let him know just what he was trying to get himself into.

"As I mentioned before, I am not exactly well favoured as a bride to _anyone, _let alone a General." How odd it seemed now that they were talking so trivially about something as important as marriage. Perhaps the fate of all China hanging in their hands had diminished the magnitude of it.

"My rank and your favour have little to do with it," he insisted to her surprise, as they had both been raised accepting that marriage was not meant to be a matter of the heart; however, then he moved his hands away from hers and cupped them around her face firmly. "What I mean is, when is China ever going to see another Fa Mulan? When would _I _ever see another? So why would I ever let you go?" his voice became softer and softer, until slowly she felt his arms begin to move and bring her face towards his.

Her heart pounded and she barely took a breath, too stunned to do anything but close her eyes and lick her lips nervously.

"YOW!" Shang bellowed in Mulan's face all of a sudden, whipping his hands away from he burning cheeks and bending down, his forehead cracking against her chin rather alarmingly in the process.

"Oow!" Mulan yelped, grabbing her face and looking around for whatever had disturbed Shang so much.

"Something _bit _me," he hissed, holding one calf in his hand and glancing around suspiciously on the floor. "You don't get any poisonous snakes around here, do you?" Mulan's eyes narrowed and she glanced around crossly, just catching sight of a red tail disappearing through a window.

"_Mushu..._" she growled, and then placed her hand on Shang's arm consolingly. "No, we don't have any snakes... a few _rats, _though."

While Shang did not look particularly thrilled with the idea of a rat any more than a snake, after checking his leg and seeing that whatever had nipped him didn't break the skin, he straightened up again.

"Oh, where... were we?" he said awkwardly, and Mulan looked away bashfully. However, before she could answer him or before they could naturally resume where they had left off, the sound of footsteps and wood on stone caught their attention.

"Ah ha, there you are," Mulan's father announced as he slid back a screen door and came into their view rather abruptly, so that now Mulan silently thanked her still-acting Guardian; she did not expect her father would have been pleased to see her embracing _any _man at this stage.

"Your mother is preparing tea," Fa Zhou told her. "Invite your guest indoors, I expect the ride from the Capital was tiring for you both."

With that he turned back on himself and disappeared back indoors. Mulan got to her feet with a sigh, quite disappointed that events had conspired against them like this; she had been _sure _Shang was going to kiss her, and now the moment had been completely ruined. She reminded herself that she probably should not have expected any better from someone such as herself, but it still left a slight sting.

She had not taken a few steps when she heard Shang's footsteps behind her.

"Mulan," he called, taking a few large strides to catch up to her and putting a hand on her shoulder.

"Yes?" she replied innocently, turning to look back over her shoulder. However, she had not expected him to suddenly turn her around with a gentle push, and even less for him to tip her back against his arm. In moments he had pulled her close and leant down, twisting his own face to meet hers and raising his free hand to loosely clasp her jaw.

She barely had time to take in a shocked breath before he finished the movement and pressed his lips against hers.

She was much too stunned to be able to do anything – it had taken Shang the best part of an hour to tell her that he had romantic inclinations towards her, and now he had spun her into some kind of picturesque kiss scene just like that.

While it didn't last that long, as there were plenty of eyes about to spy on the, it was more than enough to let the warmth of Shang's mouth linger on her own lips when he calmly pulled back and set her upright again.

Her brain had fallen somewhat behind her body, so it took a while for Mulan to register that Shang had let go of her she wobbled on her feet unsteadily, swaying to the side and almost falling over in her giddiness, if Shang hadn't happened to catch her.

"Whoa," he chuckled as she toppled and he caught her in one arm again. "Easy does it." He looked at her for some sign of acceptance, or failing that disgust in case he had just made the biggest error of judgement in his life, but he couldn't find a trace of _anything _in Mulan's expression. "Uh, Mulan?" he probed, and slowly some appearance of mental function returned to her eyes.

"Huh," she gaped, blinking heavily and then standing up with a jerk and a shake of the head. "Wuh... I'm sorry," she muttered, putting her palms to her head and massaging her brow. "I think you should warn me before you do something like that again," she murmured shyly. "You took me by surprise."

Shang smiled, and then with little steps began to lure her in the direction of the room that was awaiting their presence.

"I thought I ought make my intentions _completely _clear," he explained with a subtle grin. "I didn't expect such... _dramatic_ results." Mulan nodded along dumbly; Shang had punched, struck and thrown her into a lake before, but it only took one little kiss to throw her so far off the track she couldn't even stand on her own two feet afterwards.

"Wait your 'intentions'?" she echoed as they drew closer to their destination. He stopped, taking her hand and clasping it between his.

"Simple," he stated. "I'm going to marry you. Maybe it won't be right now, and with the state of China being what it is, it may not even be for some time, but know this, Fa Mulan; the only woman I'm ever going to wed is standing right here, and I... pray to the gods that she feels the same way."

Mulan looked up at Shang and examined him closely, her lips eventually curling into a smile. Throw honour and respectability out the window, she had done her duty to China and her family, and she could at least be the master of her own heart. She stood up on the tips of her toes to make her face reach his, but being somewhat inconveniently shorter than him by a long way, she changed tactics and raised his hands to her mouth instead, pressing his fingers to her lips and kissing them humbly.

"Of course," she told him lovingly, and hand in hand, they walked on.

* * *

FAQ - No I am not intending to finish the rest of the movie in the context of this story, the deal was for me to tell something that is shown only briefly within the movie timeline - the song 'Be a Man' - while there was a little bit of material that happened after, taking us up to the beginning of the next musical number, I never intended to make a story that was just an original re-write of the film.

No I am not planning a sequel. However, what I MIGHT do is write and publish some shorts of various different little ideas that have come through to me that are in the world of this story, some before and some after.

If you want to hold out for them then pop me into your author alert, I'd say there's a really good chance that I'll be putting out SOMETHING for Shang and Mulan in any of my new writing, but nothing in the near-near future if you get my drift.

Yes this is the end. No 'please updates' or anything because it's OVER, babies! XXX Leave a review though. X


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